Bina
A Novel in Warnings
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3.7 • 3 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
A provocative, feminist novel about a woman who persists despite the violence, injustice, and oppression that fill her world.
“Treats problems of social care slantwise, with a caustic charm liable to leave you blindsided by its most painful turns . . . Powerful, funny and highly manipulative.” —Guardian
Bina is a woman who’s had enough and isn’t afraid to say so. “I’m here to warn you, not reassure you,” she announces at the book’s outset. In a series of taut, urgent missives she attempts to set the record of her life straight—and in doing so, to be useful to others. Yet being useful is what landed her in jail. Empathy is her Achilles’ heel.
Her troubles seem to stem from an injured stranger named Eddie, and they multiply when her charity extends from delivering meals to the elderly to working with the dying. No good deed of hers goes unpunished and the costs of her capacity for care are legion, as one by one she is denied her livelihood, her health, and her freedom. Yet her voice continues resolutely, an act of friendship in itself.
Bina is an unsettling, thought-provoking novel of formal inventiveness and moral and emotional complexity by a bold and talented writer.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Schofield's enthralling latest focuses on 74-year-old Bina, a character from her debut, Malarky. Here, Bina writes a tale of female camaraderie, domestic abuse, and legal woes on the back of receipts and bills while lying in bed, accused of assisting in the death of her ill best friend, Phil. Fanatics she refers to as "crusties" keep vigil outside her home in Ireland, while inside, Bina tells her story in bursts, with sentences broken into poetic shapes and pages often left half empty. She writes about Eddie, the violent nephew of a deceased friend, who moved in, taking over her house and entangling himself in a hospital waste-dumping scheme before hightailing it to Canada. Bina also recalls "The Tall Man," the shadowy leader of a euthanasia group, who recruits Bina and sets her on a journey of helping others die under the guise of a volunteer position with Meals on Wheels. Yet at the center of the novel are Bina's memories of her friendship with Phil, who acts as Bina's sounding board for her persistent, overactive consciousness and is "great company even when was moaning and deluded." It's this bond that makes Schofield's novel shine. Intriguingly crafted and surprisingly funny, Schofield continues to produce work that challenges conventions and enthralls readers.
