Oola
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- 9,99 €
Beschreibung des Verlags
‘It's the kind of book you want to linger in and never leave; the kind of book that DOES things to you . . . I adored it’ Emma Jane Unsworth, author of Animals
OOLA is a very different kind of love story.
Oola and Leif meet at a party in East London, two Americans at a loose end. The insouciant music school dropout and aimless young writer fix on one another, grab hands and fall head-first down love’s rabbit hole.
Leif’s summer plans soon become Oola’s too and the pair find themselves mansion-sitting their way across the States, drinking the liquor cabinets dry and emptying the walk-in wardrobes to play dress-up. But when they decide to play house in a Big Sur cabin, where the clapboards quiver in the heat, boredom breeds an idea that could extinguish their love and even destroy them both.
This is a love story like no other. A savagely brilliant exploration of what it is to adore, own and inhabit your beloved. OOLA takes you to the line and shows you how to cross it.
From an electrifying new voice, this astonishing debut is as juicy and provocative as it is beautiful.
Reviews
‘An electrifying debut’ Harpers Bazaar
‘If you’re looking for a wildcard read this summer, this is definitely a contender’ Daily Mail
‘Not since Lolita’s Humbert Humbert has a narrator been as unreliable as Leif, and as with reading Nabokov’s masterpiece, the experience of reading Oola is one which will leave the reader pondering questions about love, desire and possession long after the last page has been turned’ Nylon
‘An electric new take on a classic theme; it lingers in that sinister space where love edges towards obsession. In prose that’s as beautiful as it is dizzyingly smart, Oola is a penetrating exploration of desire, privilege and its victims’ AnOther Magazine
‘I fell hard for Oola. A gloriously labyrinthine love story, packing major verve and form. The prose is satisfyingly rich and thick, and often left me thunderstruck. It's the kind of book you want to linger in and never leave; the kind of book that DOES things to you. Poetic, inspiring, just wow. In short: I adored it’ Emma Jane Unsworth, author of Animals
‘A dark, woozy, gorgeously articulate portrait of love, privilege and obsession by a frank, clear and exciting new voice’ Kirstin Innes, author of Fishnet
‘I wish “eerily beautiful” weren’t a cliché, because it perfectly describes this debut’ Teddy Wayne, author of Loner
‘Every now and then, I come across a voice that sounds like no one else, a cadence and vocabulary so specific that it feels like the beginning of a new genre…devilishly dark and achingly tender. This debut is the beginning of a career I hope to watch for decades to come’ Rachel Syme
‘[A] twisted debut, testing the boundaries between love, obsession, and identity… A dreamy and provocative exploration of sex, privilege, and self-discovery’ Kirkus Reviews
‘Her searching high beams on privilege’s victims and beneficiaries, the fluidity of gender & love’s desire to possess reflect Newell’s obvious talent for observation and care with words’ Booklist
About the author
Brittany Newell lives in your walls. She scrabbles while you sleep. She is a Californian and a creep.
OOLA is her debut novel.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Newell's debut novel, young writer Leif develops an all-encompassing obsession with his lover Oola as he attempts to pen a book about her. After growing up in New England and graduating from college, Leif travels the world, staying in hostels and house-sitting for relatives and parents of his friends. He meets Oola through a mutual friend at a party in London and tumbles into a physical relationship with her, asking her to accompany him to his latest house-sitting gig in Arizona. Leif peppers Oola with questions about her life, learning about her poor childhood in Los Angeles with parents on the fringes of the music scene. While it's ambitious of Newell to chronicle Oola along with Leif, documenting his unhealthy descent along with her life story, the obvious pitfall of this book rears its head. The reader's enjoyment will ultimately hinge on whether he or she finds Oola as fascinating as Leif does. The best parts of the novel happen when Leif isn't saying things like, "Could you have resisted her, even if you'd had an inkling that this beauty was an act?" The plot comes to life once Oola is off the page and Leif engages with his childhood pal Tay, or goes out in a full Oola outfit, complete with hair bleached Oola blonde. Shortly after she's fled him, Leif slowly loses it when he finds a diary that chronicles a wild part of her life that she'd never told him about. He sets out to find her musician ex-boyfriend Le Roy, and the book hurtles toward an unsatisfying ending.
