Nonfiction
A novel
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5,0 • 1 beoordeling
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- € 4,49
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- € 4,49
Beschrijving uitgever
'Her best novel yet' The Times
'Incredibly compelling' Daily Mail
'Incandescent'The Observer
'Fiercely intelligent' Publishers Weekly
Two parents stand by powerlessly as their only child seems intent on destroying herself. Meanwhile the mother - a novelist - attempts to understand her uneasy, unresolved relationship with her own mother.
Weaving between childhoods past and present, as well as a current narrative laced with temptation and betrayal, this is the delicate journey of a mother, daughter, wife and author struggling to make sense of her world. But can a writer ever be trusted with the truth of her own story?
Clear-eyed, self-lacerating and at times frighteningly direct, Julie Myerson's latest novel explores maternal love as the emotional foundation we both crave and fear. A howl of fury, as well as a moving love letter from a mother to a daughter, this is a book about damage, addiction, recovery and creativity.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In the fiercely intelligent latest from Myerson (The Lost Child), an unnamed middle-aged novelist considers her daughter, a young woman long in the throes of drug addiction. Rather than tell a straightforward tale of familial devastation, the narrator addresses her daughter directly ("There's a night—I think this is the middle of June—when we lock you in the house") and questions her and her husband's middle-class parenting choices, as well as the ways she herself was raised and whether it's honest and worthwhile to write about a family's pain. The harrowing story of her daughter, who's been in and out of rehab and now lives on the street, includes accounts of sex in exchange for drugs ("It doesn't matter how much it hurts or frightens you, or what the consequences are, as long as they promise to fix you up"). It's interspersed with other narratives, some of which are more effective than others. Highlights include the narrator's startling and potent examination of the nature of infidelity while she carries on an emotional affair with a former lover. Less effective are her remembrances of her late mother, a cruel and unpredictable woman with whom she lost touch, which pale in comparison to the urgent material on parenting and art. While the dreariness of the subject matter might be exhausting for some, it is never overwrought on the page. Myerson's narrative is focused and powerful.
