We are All Made of Glue

Dear Ms. Lewycka,

Please stop trying so hard to be entertaining. Just have a cup of tea and try to calm down.

Sincerely,
Your Readers

The plot: Georgie is in the middle of the breakup of her marriage when she meets an old woman who lives in her neighborhood. The old woman, Mrs. Shapiro, is seemingly a crazy old cat lady/hoarder. But she has some sort of secret that Georgie really wants to figure out. Meanwhile, Georgie's teenage son has become convinced it's the end of the world, causing problems of his own.

My issues with this book (and I had many): It was way too descriptive about the disgusting sights, smells and foods in Mrs. Shapiro's house. If it makes my stomach turn on every page, I'm probably not having a good time reading your show more "comic novel." The word "gunge" doesn't need to appear on every page. Also, if it's supposed to be funny, you may want to consider that describing this woman wearing old, dirty clothes in her filthy home eating spoiled food and having her cats urinating on everything is not actually going to be funny to a lot of people, just sad.

Georgie reads like someone who has recently arrived on planet Earth. She doesn't know anything about anything; it's a major revelation for her when she realizes that a revenge scenario wouldn't work because *gasp* she completely forgot that men don't sit down to pee. (Seriously.) It's a running "joke" in the book that she mishears everything. Fine, but she accepts whatever she originally hears as though it must be fact. Yes, I'm sure the woman's name is Mrs. Goodknee, and the nursing home is called Nightmare House. In return, people keep getting her name wrong, calling her Georgia, Georgiana, Georgina, etc. (oh, the hilarity). But when someone who thinks her name is Georgia asks her teasingly, "The US state or the country?" about her name, she can only mumble "I'm not good with geography." This is because Georgie is an idiot.

Georgie is also a budding writer, so we're treated to bits and pieces from her romance novel. They are intentionally terrible, I guess, although it's never made clear that Georgie should have all her fingers broken to keep her from continuing her writing aspirations. The problem with including fictional bad writing in your book is that it has to be appreciably more terrible than the book we're actually reading. In this case, I think it's a draw.

Oh, and hey, among all this other nonsense, the book is about World War II, and Jews and Palestinians and the conflicts over a homeland for both of them. If you're thinking "Uh, I'm not sure how that could fit in with everything else previously described in any sort of way that's not either shoehorned in or completely inappropriate," you're getting the idea. It's both.

Recommended for: people who like watching comedians struggling to be funny and failing, people who watch Hoarders and laugh though it.

Quote: "In the bottom of the fridge I found three black, wizened human fingers. It took me a moment to realise they were carrots." show less

Eines steht fest: Marina Lewycka kann schreiben, durchweg amüsant, selbstironisch, mit einem Blick für's Detail (beispielsweise ihre Beschreibung der Dübel-Abteilung im Baumarkt: 'Die Dübel wirkten außerirdisch, gruselig, mit ihren knubbeligen Plastikpanzern, ihren komplizierten Farben und Nummern: Spreiz-Dübel, Kipp-Dübel, Hohlraum-Dübel, Holzdübel.'). Es macht Spass, Georgie Sinclairs chaotisch gewordenem Leben zu folgen, nachdem ihr Mann sie wegen eines nichtangebrachten Zahnbürstenhalters verlassen hat. Doch leider ist die Freude nicht von Dauer. Aber der Reihe nach.
Georgie, verheirateter frischer Single, lernt kurz nach dem Auszug ihres Mannes Mrs. Shapiro kennen, die ganz in der Nähe in einem halb verfallenen Haus show more lebt. Aus Mitgefühl und einer gewissen Neugier für diese exzentrische alte Dame ist sie ihr behilflich, als diese für kurze Zeit ins Krankenhaus muss. Bald schon ist es jedoch mit Katzen füttern nicht mehr getan: Eine gierige Sozialarbeiterin und zwei ebensolche Immobilienmaklerbüros versuchen, sich mit allen Mitteln das Haus unter den Nagel zu reißen, währenddessen Georgias Sohn mit Weltuntergangsszenarien zu kämpfen hat. Als ob all dies noch nicht genug wäre, entpuppt sich der für Mrs. Shapiros Haus engagierte Handwerker als Palästinenser, der so seine Probleme damit hat für eine Jüdin zu arbeiten - wie auch im umgekehrten Fall. Und einer der Immobilienmakler bringt Georgie nicht nur wegen des Hauses ziemlich durcheinander...
Was sich zu Beginn witzig und schwungvoll liest, driftet mit fortschreitender Seitenzahl immer wieder mal ins Klamaukhafte und Unglaubwürdige ab (z.B. als Georgia ihren Mann mit seiner Begleitung angreift). Manche Geschehnisse erscheinen derart unlogisch, dass man nur noch zweifelnd den Kopf schüttelt (einerseits kämpft sie gegen die Immobilienmakler wie eine Furie, zeigt aber geraume Zeit keinerlei Interesse für die Besitzerin, für die sie das alles vollführt). Und Handlungsstränge werden angelegt, die jedoch leise einfach wieder verschwinden (die Zwangseinweisung Mrs. Shapiros beispielsweise).
Schade, eine gut durchdachte und schlüssige Geschichte in diesem Schreibstil - das wäre ein super Buch gewesen. So aber bleiben am Ende nur gemischte Gefühle zurück. show less

After enjoying 'Tractors', and disliking 'Caravans', I wondered what I would make of 'Glue'. Actually, it turned out to be my favourite of the three.

Georgie Sinclair lives in London, after moving there with her family from Leeds. Her husband, Rip, is a lawyer working for a worthy cause but, after an incident involving a toothbrush holder, Georgie throws a wobbly and Rip ends up moving out. She throws his precious records on a skip, along with most of his other valued possessions, and one night she looks out of the window to see a figure rummaging in the skip. This is Mrs Naomi Shapiro, a batty old Jewish lady, who lives in a ramshackle, but highly sought after house, with a range of randy and mangy cats.

There follows a chaotic set of show more events involving hospitals, nursing homes, Arab handymen, wolfish estate agents, crooked social workers and Georgie's son Ben's religious ravings.

This is a dry, funny book and Marina Lewycka really excels at this type of humour in her writing. The story is told by Georgie in a first person narrative, and this works very well in this book. The characters are bizarre and unusual and the story is brought together very well. My only criticism is that, for me, it was a little bit too long, but still an excellent piece of writing. show less

Plus a bit of a star. Well written and a comforting angle to some uncomfortable topics. The author has packed in some interesting takes on a whole lot of subjects - WWII, Irish troubles, Israel/Palestine, old age, teenage, middle age, housing - with some parallels drawn but not overdone. A light touch. I can see from other reviews that a lot of readers were disappointed but not sure what they are demanding. I enjoyed sharing the few hectic months with the protagonist that offered life changing potential and don't feel that tragedy or drama would have been a more fitting outcome than the one we were offered. And happy to share some optimism for a few hours.

A few chapters in I found myself wondering whether Marina Lewycka might have the ultimate perfect writing style – the way she gets in and out of a sentence with just the right number of words, never over-writes, ends her sections long before they have a chance to get boring, and adds just the right amount of humour to keep it bouncing along. The perfect balance!

In this novel we find the familiar Eastern European/elderly persons axis, as well as a kaleidoscope of additional themes ranging from Arthur Scargill to Armageddon , B&Q to bondage, as well as a Kippax fixation, all fused together quite literally with glue. Not content with that, in an admirable display of boldness the author rolls up her trouser legs and wades into the show more Israeli-Palestinian question. It was here that the perfect balance I was so admiring in the early prose threatened to falter, as a determined effort not to be preachy or didactic became visible beneath the surface. Like trying to slice the last piece of cake exactly down the middle I could sense the work that was going into being even handed. Some of the later discourses seemed to go on a mite too long with each ‘side’ in the debate demonstrating how they had suffered.

But that’s just a minor criticism. I loved this big, eventful, ambitious novel. I laughed, I cried, I learned and I don’t ask any more from a book. show less

Plus a bit of a star. Well written and a comforting angle to some uncomfortable topics. The author has packed in some interesting takes on a whole lot of subjects - WWII, Irish troubles, Israel/Palestine, old age, teenage, middle age, housing - with some parallels drawn but not overdone. A light touch. I can see from other reviews that a lot of readers were disappointed but not sure what they are demanding. I enjoyed sharing the few hectic months with the protagonist that offered life changing potential and don't feel that tragedy or drama would have been a more fitting outcome than the one we were offered. And happy to share some optimism for a few hours.

Marina Lewycka's novel, We Are All Made of Glue, tells the story of how single-mother Georgie Sinclair meets eccentric Naomi Shapiro and gets drawn into her crazy life. In this sprawling story, Lewycka touches on a myriad of ideas, including how we treat the elderly, the horrors of the Holocaust, the complexities of the Arab-Israeli conflict, not to mention teenage obsession with Armageddon.

I have mixed feelings about this book. It was overly long and ambitious, with a jumble of characters and themes, and the glue metaphor seemed overdone. However, it was an interesting look at the Arab-Israeli situation and the history behind it. Despite the flaws, this was an entertaining and humorous novel with well-developed characters.