Helpful Score: 5
I read the first few pages and I was suddenly afraid. Afraid to put this down even for a quick break because it deserved my complete focus on it, each tortured character demanding that I listen to their voice, their story. I didn't want to miss a thing, no matter whether disturbing or unsettling, and I certainly didn't want to forget a single moment that the characters experienced.
The book is told from two perspectives in the first person: Stella and Tilly. Stella is the daughter of a high-powered immigration lawyer, Dora, and the granddaughter of Lucy, who in her ailing years reveals a secret that no one has talked about. There is another, a daughter of Lucy's that has never been spoken of. Stella, broken though she may be, is determined to find this aunt, someone named Matilda who goes by Tilly. When she finds her, Tilly is surrounded by empty bottles of gin in a run-down trailer in the middle of the desert. But it's something that Stella can grasp onto in the mired sadness of her life -- again, maybe someone she can try to help. She convinces Tilly that they should pack everything up, get her dry and sober on the trip, and move together to San Francisco, where Tilly's son is a rich banker with plenty of space in his home, and plenty of his own quiet grief to share. Stella and Tilly really almost are the same person, their experiences painfully different and similar all at the same time. Is that possible? It almost felt like I was reading a song.
I felt guilty as I read this book -- each character's troubled story touched me and I felt ashamed that I was enjoying reading about their terrible miseries, rooting though I may have been for them to overcome their tragedies.
This is a story of grief, sadness, isolation. There were scenes that were uncomfortable and troubling but they were real, completely authentic and believable to each character, and I never felt tricked into any part of this story -- I was a willing reader who wanted a happy ending, but instead I got life's truth. Leslie Jamison's debut will render you speechless and amazed, and leave you thinking about it for days.
http://coffeeandabookchick.blogspot.com
The book is told from two perspectives in the first person: Stella and Tilly. Stella is the daughter of a high-powered immigration lawyer, Dora, and the granddaughter of Lucy, who in her ailing years reveals a secret that no one has talked about. There is another, a daughter of Lucy's that has never been spoken of. Stella, broken though she may be, is determined to find this aunt, someone named Matilda who goes by Tilly. When she finds her, Tilly is surrounded by empty bottles of gin in a run-down trailer in the middle of the desert. But it's something that Stella can grasp onto in the mired sadness of her life -- again, maybe someone she can try to help. She convinces Tilly that they should pack everything up, get her dry and sober on the trip, and move together to San Francisco, where Tilly's son is a rich banker with plenty of space in his home, and plenty of his own quiet grief to share. Stella and Tilly really almost are the same person, their experiences painfully different and similar all at the same time. Is that possible? It almost felt like I was reading a song.
I felt guilty as I read this book -- each character's troubled story touched me and I felt ashamed that I was enjoying reading about their terrible miseries, rooting though I may have been for them to overcome their tragedies.
This is a story of grief, sadness, isolation. There were scenes that were uncomfortable and troubling but they were real, completely authentic and believable to each character, and I never felt tricked into any part of this story -- I was a willing reader who wanted a happy ending, but instead I got life's truth. Leslie Jamison's debut will render you speechless and amazed, and leave you thinking about it for days.
http://coffeeandabookchick.blogspot.com
