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Indlæser... Creatures: A Novel (original 2020; udgave 2020)af Crissy Van Meter (Forfatter)
Work InformationCreatures af Crissy Van Meter (2020)
New Fiction (4) Indlæser...
Bliv medlem af LibraryThing for at finde ud af, om du vil kunne lide denne bog. Der er ingen diskussionstråde på Snak om denne bog. If you’re looking to read a book in one sitting, look no further. Creatures is a unique family drama that sucks you under like a furtive undertow. You will feel every range of emotions while turning these pages, it will leave you speechless. ( ) This review was written for LibraryThing Early Reviewers. Beautiful story and gorgeous writing. This will definitely be one of my favorites for awhile.Some readers may find Crissy Van Meter’s debut novel “magical” and “lyric”. Others may simply be annoyed at its fragmented structure and its self-indulgent characters. The story bounces around the life of the main character, Evie. Damaged perhaps irreparably by her mother’s abandonment and her feckless father’s inconsistent parenting, Evie has difficulty seeing herself as someone of worth, and – not surprisingly – has problems forming meaningful relationships with others. In the opening chapter, it’s the eve of her wedding, her commercial-fisherman fiancée’s boat has not yet returned to port, her peripatetic mother has popped in uninvited, and there is a large, dead, and increasingly smelly whale stranded at the harbor entry of the small California Channel island where she lives. It takes a rather long time to circle back around to the conclusion of this stressful episode, and the path wanders back and forth through Evie’s life (including the decades-later rough patch in her marriage, which sort of takes out the suspense of whether or not Liam is going to show up for the nuptials). Evie is an engaging character, and her struggles to grow up despite an unconventional, often deprived, upbringing form the heart of the novel. Her love-hate relationship with the tiny island where she lives echoes her love-hate relationship with her parents, her early sex partners, and even her best friend whose ultimate betrayal seems for a while to be a gulf she cannot cross. The island itself and particularly the whales and other sea mammals she studies are beautifully described and are themselves additional characters in the tale. But there really doesn’t seem to be any particular reason to depart from a straight chronological telling, which is annoying at least and confusing at worst. The real weakness, at last for this reviewer, was the constant thread of drug and alcohol abuse by all the characters. How often can one ask the reader to witness beer & bong parties, characters throwing up, skull-busting hangovers, and random sexual encounters, all laced liberally with F-bombs apparently inserted every paragraph or so to give verisimilitude to the dialogue. “Creatures” is a slim book, so reading it doesn’t represent a great investment of time. But it’s so in love with itself, with the meta structure and metaphorical reach of an undeniably talented but somewhat undisciplined writer, that the whole thing just feels self-indulgent. Four stars for the quality of the story; three for presentation. ingen anmeldelser | tilføj en anmeldelse
Distinctions
Fiction.
Literature.
On the eve of Evangeline's wedding, a dead whale is trapped in the harbor of Winter Island, the groom may be lost at sea, and Evie's mostly absent mother has shown up out of the blue. From there, in this mesmerizing, provocative debut, Evie remembers and reckons with her complicated upbringing in this lush, wild land off the coast of Southern California. Evie grew up with her well-meaning but negligent father, surviving on the money he made dealing the island's world-famous strain of marijuana, Winter Wonderland. Although he raised her with a deep respect for the elements, the sea, and the creatures living within it, he also left her to parent herself. With wit, love, and bracing ashes of anger, Creatures probes the complexities of love and abandonment, guilt and forgiveness, betrayal and grief-and the ways in which our ability to love can be threatened if we are not brave enough to conquer the past. Lyrical, darkly funny, and ultimately cathartic, Creatures exerts a pull as strong as the tides. No library descriptions found. |
LibraryThing Early Reviewers AlumCrissy Van Meter's book Creatures was available from LibraryThing Early Reviewers. Current DiscussionsIngenPopulære omslag
Google Books — Indlæser... GenrerMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.6Literature English (North America) American fiction 21st CenturyLC-klassificeringVurderingGennemsnit:
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