When to Walk
کتاب های مرتبط
- اطلاعات
- نقد و بررسی
- دیدگاه کاربران
نقد و بررسی
August 27, 2007
British writer Gowers follows her nonfiction work on Victorian criminals, The Swamp of Death
, with a fictive weeklong journey inside the head of Ramble, a London woman quietly going crazy. Handicapped, partially deaf Ramble provides first-person narration that careens from her thoughts on photocopying pound notes to her grandmother's childhood to 1840s Stamp Office clerks with barely a breath. When husband Con calls her an “autistic vampire” and takes off with the petty criminal living downstairs, Ramble comes unglued, and the narrative goes along with her: “Remedial wise, give HER! The short shrift treatment NOW! And in a few days hence you will be beholding to no one: a law unto yourself. Oh yes!” While several quirky characters — particularly Stella, Ramble's dementia-suffering grandmother, and Johnson Pike, her childhood friend—are well imagined, Ramble's voice isn't enough to hold the book together as she flies apart.
September 15, 2007
Life as shes known it comes to an abrupt end for a young woman known only as Ramble, when her husband walks out after blaming her for all that went wrong in their short marriage. Already at a disadvantage from partial hearing loss and arthritis-related mobility problems, Ramble now has to work out how to pay the rent, look in on her senile grandmother, and contend with a crazy neighbor who drunkenly lands on her couch and tries to involve her in a meter-reading scam. As a travel writer who never travels, Ramble also struggles with a deadline for an article on ice sculptures using information primarily gleaned from Wikipedia and other Internet sources. In spite of her frailties, Ramble is an engaging and entertaining narrator, trying to work out what comes next. This likable first novel makes a good choice for most public libraries.Barbara Love, Kingston Frontenac P.L., Ont.
Copyright 2007 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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