Sister Crazy
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- 5,99 €
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- 5,99 €
Publisher Description
‘Both comic and deeply serious. A truly dazzling debut.’ BERYL BAINBRIDGE
Jemima Weiss grew up with a special feeling for Action Man, American westerns, the Knights of the Round Table, bagels with cheddar on the top and, above all else, her family: her rumpled father, glamorous mother and four remarkable siblings. Now grown into a worldly yet deeply troubled woman, Jem reflects on her days as a young girl, even as she struggles not to be engulfed by the present.
An edgy and deeply funny account about growing up in a close-knit family, and the difficulties of breaking away, in fact, of making oneself break away from the security of the family bonds.
An extraordinarily brilliant piece of writing. Emma Richler has chosen to tell a classic tale, one which writers often cut their teeth on, but the voice and the style she brings to this novel is simply astonishing. The combination of ingenious comedy and absolutely devastating bombshells of detail makes this book a rare thing indeed.
Reviews
‘The tone is confiding, the form original and I was charmed and impressed.’ Observer
‘A charmer with a dangerous undertow’ Time Out
'There is an enticingly breathless quality to Richler's prose, and in a childlike dash, she guides us through her elegy for lost youth. Her incisive observations on the intricacies of family dynamics are by turns whimsical, intense and darkly funny.' TLS
'Stunning…Richler has written a deeply moving book. Her language is electric, her formal poise astonishing in a first novel; her observations of the world of children, of the terror of madness, riveting. And she is bold and witty and will make you laugh out loud.' Lisa Appignanesi
About the author
Emma Richler was born in London and grew up in London and Montreal. She trained as an actress in New York City and worked in the UK in theatre, film, television and on BBC Radio for ten years. She lives in North London.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
What does it mean to be terminally, madly in love with your family? Jemima Weiss, the narrator of this nervy, inspired debut novel, knows very well the perils of the condition. She has never quite recovered from an imperfect but dangerously idyllic childhood, and in her stream-of-consciousness tale she loses herself in the lush lexicography of family. She is the middle child of five, born in the early '60s to an irascible Jewish sportswriter father and a gorgeous, serene Protestant mother who relocate from England to Canada when Jem is 11. Transatlantic and sophisticated, but also na ve and slightly wild, Jem and her siblings speak their own coded language, full of in-jokes and rambling free association (" 'Agnus Dei,' says Ben. 'Paschal lamb. Lamb to the slaughter.' 'Mary had a little lamb!' I say"). Ben, the eldest, has what the family calls a gothic sensibility; Gus, the youngest, is a golden boy. Jem loves them both, but her deepest, most complicated feelings are reserved for scattered, ethereal Harriet, three years younger and her special charge, and silent, stalwart Jude, her beloved almost-twin. Vignettes strung together according to Jem's private logic allude to her education at different convent schools, the WWII games she plays with Jude, her fascination with St. Francis of Assisi (who "called everything Brother this and Sister that"). Throughout, hints dropped by an adult Jem reveal that "Sister Crazy" is not just a play name. As she grows up, Jem lapses into madness, tormented by the loss of the intimacies of childhood. Richler (daughter of the Canadian writer Mordecai Richler) perfectly channels Jem's wise-child voice. Though her narrative does not quite achieve the crystal clarity of Salinger's Glass family stories, she captures the allure and subtle perils of a similarly intense, hothouse upbringing.