Why Did I Ever
"I don't want to think about Paulie.
Work Information
"I don't want to think about Paulie.
"I don't want to think about Paulie. I don't want to think about Paulie. I don't want to think about Paulie.". "Money Breton is on a rant. In this fierce and wired diary, she chronicles the forces massing against her. Three husbands have left. IRS agents are whamming on her door. Her grown children are in trouble and even her cat is missing. Back and forth between a small southern town and the pumped-up insanity of Filmland, U.S.A., Money's convinced her career as a script doctor is being ripped from her hands. She's been fired by most of the studios, and she's beginning to think that her dealings with Hollywood have fractured her personality and rendered her a "multiple." She talks to herself nonstop. She tells her mirrored reflection, "That face needs cheekbones," says to her hands, "Quit shaking - people can see."". "She glues and hammers and paints every item in her house. She calls her ex-husbands: "You did what kind of work?" She forges loving inscriptions to herself from the authors of books in her library. She drives her car in great circles, all over the South. Throughout it all there is Mev, her darling and puzzling daughter, living close by but seeming always just out of touch, and Paulie, her son, the damaged victim of a violent crime now living under police protection in New York City. While both her children appear to be losing all of their battles, Money fights even harder to win a few of her own."--BOOK JACKET.
Book Information
- Publisher
- Counterpoint
- Published
- 2001-10-23
- Pages
- 200 pages
- Language
- 英語
- Size
- 14.61 x 2.54 x 20.96 cm
- ISBN-13
- 9781582430607
- ISBN-10
- 1582430608
- Price
- 3599 JPY
- Category
- 洋書/Literature & Fiction/Literary
Money Breton, a Hollywood script doctor, finds the stresses and challenges of modern life beginning to wreak havoc as she struggles to cope with three ex-husbands, the I.R.S., the problems of her grown children, and the bizarre world of Hollywood filmdom.
Mary Robison is the author of three story collections and two novels. She has written for Hollywood and been a contributor to The New Yorker since 1977. She has taught with many writing programs and is now a professor at the University of Southern Mississippi.
Reviews
-
Thoughts, Emotions, and Fragmentation: A Novel Of Full Human Experience
The style of this novel is as unique as you will find, and tells a story in the way that we remember and experience things. It's a collection of moments; little snippets of thoughts and feelings that get jumbled up and twisted, ultimately telling a story of extreme pain and heartfelt regret. If you are a fan of flash fiction, it is likely that you will be drawn to this book; all of these tiny little moments are stories unto themselves, with beginnings, middles, and ends. The narrative of this novel is multitudinal; it is less a set of train tracks as it a dangling threads off a ball of yarn. It all leads to the same, unraveled core, but because this is a collection of emotions and thoughts, you can follow a different path each time. A truly underrated novel that speaks to the disparate and fragmented nature of memory and human experience.
-
Not for me - didn't finish it
I read the first 30 pages and was puzzled as to who would find this interesting enough to finish it, much less write a good review. It read like stream of consciousness, flitting from one thought to the next with no coherent plot in sight. Too bad - I thought the premise had promise. I wanted to like it!
-
Not much too enjoy here
There are a few funny lines, but overall this book is not worth the time it takes to read it. I found it hard to understand what was even happening in each segment. I had to force myself to finish it, because I kept thinking surely it would get better. I'll spare you; it doesn't get better.
-
What is Normal, anyway?
Robison certainly has a way with words. Somewhere in this jewel she has a passage that goes something like: "... but while I would never hit you or anything I can be like verbally abusive." "No, you could never do that", she replies, "In order to do that you would have to know like what is a verb." Those lines alone are worth the price of the book. But I found it to be insigntful, alarming, and humorous, and furthermore made me feel almost normal.
-
Out of the Ordinary
This is one of those books where you really need to think outside the box while you are reading it. Based on a woman who suffers fromm ADD, this book works its way through the complexities of having ADD and how one with this disorder responds to every day norms and society as a whole.