Book #25 for 2008
#25 - All About Lulu by Jonathan Evison
GENRE OF WORK: American Literature (Contemporary)
YEAR PUBLISHED: 2008
*****
Jacket Description
"William Miller--confirmed mamma's boy and weak eyed vegetarian in a family of bodybuilders--learns at a tender age what amounts to the Cartesian dictum for bodybuilders everywhere: no pain, no gain. I hurt, therefore I am--words he learns to live by in the wake of his mother's death. When his father remarries a relentlessly kind grief counselor, Will falls in love with his troubled step-sister, Lulu. But as Lulu's behavior becomes increasingly erratic and inexplicably cruel, Will's sense of identity begins to founder. Faced with the knowledge that he can never hold the key to Lulu's heart, Will only clings harder to her, until his unwanted affection drives Lulu into a pattern of self-destruction which follows her into adolescence..."
Review
I don't often read contemporary American literary fiction. When I do read such works (The Time Traveler's Wife, Empire Falls) I read them in large chunks and ultimately they have a great emotional impact. All About Lulu, the debut novel by Jonathan Evison, is no exception. It is an unconventional love story, the basic premise of which I had thought of writing before. Evison crafts it into a far more layered and encompassing story. It is Holden Caufield's Lolita. If Nabokov's Lolita was a metaphor for totalitarianism or opposing cultures, Evison's Lulu is a metaphor for growing up (or perhaps remaining young) and the desperation of teenage youth in the American dystopia. A brilliant first novel.
BOOKS: 25/50
PAGES: 5656
x-posted to journal
GENRE OF WORK: American Literature (Contemporary)
YEAR PUBLISHED: 2008
*****
Jacket Description
"William Miller--confirmed mamma's boy and weak eyed vegetarian in a family of bodybuilders--learns at a tender age what amounts to the Cartesian dictum for bodybuilders everywhere: no pain, no gain. I hurt, therefore I am--words he learns to live by in the wake of his mother's death. When his father remarries a relentlessly kind grief counselor, Will falls in love with his troubled step-sister, Lulu. But as Lulu's behavior becomes increasingly erratic and inexplicably cruel, Will's sense of identity begins to founder. Faced with the knowledge that he can never hold the key to Lulu's heart, Will only clings harder to her, until his unwanted affection drives Lulu into a pattern of self-destruction which follows her into adolescence..."
Review
I don't often read contemporary American literary fiction. When I do read such works (The Time Traveler's Wife, Empire Falls) I read them in large chunks and ultimately they have a great emotional impact. All About Lulu, the debut novel by Jonathan Evison, is no exception. It is an unconventional love story, the basic premise of which I had thought of writing before. Evison crafts it into a far more layered and encompassing story. It is Holden Caufield's Lolita. If Nabokov's Lolita was a metaphor for totalitarianism or opposing cultures, Evison's Lulu is a metaphor for growing up (or perhaps remaining young) and the desperation of teenage youth in the American dystopia. A brilliant first novel.
BOOKS: 25/50
PAGES: 5656
x-posted to journal