The Nobodies Album by Carolyn Parkhurst
Jan. 19th, 2011 01:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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bookcrossing(My maiden dip into posting on dreamwidth. Hi all! Just joined today and am working this out.)
I don't remember what it was that first called this book to my attention, but I suspect that it was my previous experiences with the author in The Dogs of Babel (enthralling, well written and sad) and Lost and Found (a bit jumpy for me in the telling of the tale, with switches between POV, but still compelling.) The basic story here, in The Nobodies Album really captured me. Maybe because I am the mother to a son, maybe because I've often played the "what if" game when looking back, to wonder how life would have played differently. I've wished that do-overs were real. I can think of 2 or three moments in my I would definitely redo completely.
Basic premise: Olivia is an author of moderate success and much personal tragedy (Her husband and young daughter had died together, leaving Olivia and her 9-year old son to pick up the pieces and carry on with life) On the way to deliver her latest manuscript to her publisher, she learns that Milo, her now-estranged rock-star son, has been arrested for the murder of his girlfriend. Olivia's manuscript, The Nobodies Album, takes the last chapters of her previous novels and gives them different endings -- new opportunities for the characters, new interpretations to the stories. Her son's arrest gives her the chance to possibly do the same with her life and their relationship.
The author has interspersed Olivia and Milo's story with the original endings and then the redos of Olivia's books. Given that normally, I really like stories within stories, it was somewhat surprising that I really disliked the interruptions in the basic story line here. I speculate that maybe it was because I was only fed an ending, not told a full tale, or that maybe because I wouldn't have read Olivia's novels, since they were so full of sadness as she worked out the death of her husband and daughter years before. And maybe, it's because I have mixed feelings about alternate endings. (After all, it would have been just plain boring if Eliza had married Freddy, so I can't object to authors changing endings too much!) If you re-write history, especially personal history, do you change who you are? Or can you learn from your mistakes, the things that would have been "re-dos" and grow even more?
I think this is my favorite Parkhurst book of the three I've read, and it has given me much delicious food for thought.
Many thanks to the LibraryThing Early Review program for sending this on (from the July 2010 batch, and arrived mid January 2011.)
I don't remember what it was that first called this book to my attention, but I suspect that it was my previous experiences with the author in The Dogs of Babel (enthralling, well written and sad) and Lost and Found (a bit jumpy for me in the telling of the tale, with switches between POV, but still compelling.) The basic story here, in The Nobodies Album really captured me. Maybe because I am the mother to a son, maybe because I've often played the "what if" game when looking back, to wonder how life would have played differently. I've wished that do-overs were real. I can think of 2 or three moments in my I would definitely redo completely.Basic premise: Olivia is an author of moderate success and much personal tragedy (Her husband and young daughter had died together, leaving Olivia and her 9-year old son to pick up the pieces and carry on with life) On the way to deliver her latest manuscript to her publisher, she learns that Milo, her now-estranged rock-star son, has been arrested for the murder of his girlfriend. Olivia's manuscript, The Nobodies Album, takes the last chapters of her previous novels and gives them different endings -- new opportunities for the characters, new interpretations to the stories. Her son's arrest gives her the chance to possibly do the same with her life and their relationship.
The author has interspersed Olivia and Milo's story with the original endings and then the redos of Olivia's books. Given that normally, I really like stories within stories, it was somewhat surprising that I really disliked the interruptions in the basic story line here. I speculate that maybe it was because I was only fed an ending, not told a full tale, or that maybe because I wouldn't have read Olivia's novels, since they were so full of sadness as she worked out the death of her husband and daughter years before. And maybe, it's because I have mixed feelings about alternate endings. (After all, it would have been just plain boring if Eliza had married Freddy, so I can't object to authors changing endings too much!) If you re-write history, especially personal history, do you change who you are? Or can you learn from your mistakes, the things that would have been "re-dos" and grow even more?
I think this is my favorite Parkhurst book of the three I've read, and it has given me much delicious food for thought.
Many thanks to the LibraryThing Early Review program for sending this on (from the July 2010 batch, and arrived mid January 2011.)
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Date: 2011-01-20 10:43 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-20 10:52 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-20 11:48 pm (UTC)