The Many Revenges of Kip Flynn
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
It all started with a black rose and a rich young man. And a house with a creek running through it. And then there she was, Kip Flynn, standing beside her dead boyfriend and agreeing to take a large sum of money from the young man's father to keep quiet. As if she could have done anything else, being so scared and grief-stricken and maybe pregnant.
But that's not the end of it. A rising-stakes vendetta develops between the young rose seller and the building developer, spiralling outward to envelop family, lovers, friends, landlords, wormpickers, window cleaners, Vietnamese gangsters, stand-up bass players and tour-bus guides, involving subway accidents, arson, drainpipes, buried rivers, backhoe wars, stretch limos, ultrasound technicians, poorly fitted windows and an aubergine Saab.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Kip Flynn, a young woman living in the slums of Toronto, breaks into an abandoned house with her boyfriend, Mani, and finds a wealthy industrialist and his son living there. When the industrialist, Cyrus York, sees the couple, he shoots Mani. Cyrus bribes Kip into keeping quiet about her boyfriend's death by giving her half of his fortune ($15 million), which infuriates Cyrus's son, Pat, who sees this as a theft of his inheritance. Later, Kip accidentally causes Cyrus to have a heart attack when she brings burial clothes for Mani, which his father's death makes Pat vow revenge. After Kip finishes mourning Mani, she too vows revenge against Pat. Dixon (The Girls Who Saw Everything) plays with language and form, using images to crystallize a reader's experience and make them consider the possibilities of the novel. Despite a promising start, the story falls apart by the last third, with magical realism taking over in a way that obscures the plot. Still, readers will appreciate Dixon's storytelling and should be willing to overlook the ending. \t
