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Loading... Mislaidby Nell Zink
   No current Talk conversations about this book.   ) monicaberger | Jan 22, 2024 |   ) steve02476 | Jan 3, 2023 | ) Kevinred | Apr 29, 2022 |  ) Ken-Me-Old-Mate | Sep 24, 2020 | This holds the distinction of being the worst novel I have the memory of reading. In all honesty, I skimmed a large amount of story starting around 40% through. Filled with repugnant characters, a severe misunderstanding of race relations, an insultingly absurd premise, homophobia, misogyny, casual pedophilia, and just plain poor writing, every reading session of this book felt like a particularly cruel form of Inquisitional torture. The scenes of the main character, whose name I can't remember, composing plays that spell out how she feels about relationships all too clearly, and then were even more clearly spelled out by the author literally telling me what they meant, had me rolling my eyes and wondering how something like this gets published. The scene in which her decision not to shoot a black man in cold blood is meant to convince us innocent readers that our protagonist had completely assimilated into black culture was when I put my head in my hands and thought deeply about what I was doing. The scene were the gay poetry professor casually fantasizes about sexually assaulting and murdering a bizarre straw-woman for feminism and Maoism was the icing on the cake. I would not recommend this horrible reading experience to anyone. (  ) robinmusubi | Jun 5, 2020 | no reviews | add a review
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Fiction.
Literature.
Humor (Fiction.)
HTML: LONGLISTED FOR THE 2015 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD A sharply observed, mordantly funny, and startlingly original novel from an exciting, unconventional new voiceâ??the author of the acclaimed The Wallcreeperâ??about the making and unmaking of the American family that lays bare all of our assumptions about race and racism, sexuality and desire. Stillwater College in Virginia, 1966. Freshman Peggy, an ingĂ©nue with literary pretensions, falls under the spell of Lee, a blue-blooded poet and professor, and they begin an ill-advised affair that results in an unplanned pregnancy and marriage. The two are mismatched from the startâ??she's a lesbian, he's gayâ??but it takes a decade of emotional erosion before Peggy runs off with their three-year-old daughter, leaving their nine-year-old son behind. Worried that Lee will have her committed for her erratic behavior, Peggy goes underground, adopting an African American persona for her and her daughter. They squat in a house in an African-American settlement, eventually moving to a housing project where no one questions their true racial identities. As Peggy and Lee's children grow up, they must contend with diverse emotional issues: Byrdie deals with his father's compulsive honesty; while Karen struggles with her mother's liesâ??she knows neither her real age, nor that she is "white," nor that she has any other family. Years later, a minority scholarship lands Karen at the University of Virginia, where Byrdie is in his senior year. Eventually the long lost siblings will meet, setting off a series of misunderstandings and culminating in a comedic finale worthy of No library descriptions found. |
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 Google Books — Loading...GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.6Literature English (North America) American fiction 21st CenturyLC ClassificationRatingAverage: (3.34)
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