Damage Book

Hand me the WD40!

I know you all are probably getting sick of my pogo stick, but damn, here I go again, hopping like crazy! Can someone lend me some WD40? The damn thing is getting squeaky from overuse! But I'm not complaining.

I love loony bins!
This book, oh, this book. The story is about Esme, a woman who has spent 60 years in a loony bin and suddenly is released into the custody of her grand-niece, whom she has never met. (Juicy already, right?) So 60 years?!! Come on, right there the book had me salivating. I love psychology, and frankly, I love crazy characters. I immediately had a zillion questions. How crazy is she, and what does it look like? What if she isn't crazy at all? Did someone commit her and throw away the key, or did she claim her spot as a crackpot and hang out a sign, Home Sweet Home? Why was she there so eff-ing long? What's it like inside the joint? Plenty of juicy questions, which could only have juicy answers. I was ready to scarf down this slurpie!

It's jumpy all right…
There are three narrators: Esme, her sister, and her grand-niece. Each of them chirps up unexpectedly, sometimes in the middle of a paragraph even, squeezing out the last character who was just getting started. Yeah, it's jumpy all right'there are even two time periods. Who knew whether this would work for me. Would I get totally confused and go running to my Complaint Board? No way, not with a master like O'Farrell. I realized early on that my pogo stick had a mind of its own, leading me from person to person, past to present, ecstatically cutting through time and space with ease.

Trying to sell the jumpy.
I was trying to sell this jumpy style to a friend who lives by linear. He was not impressed. Super annoyed even by the idea of it, he wanted to know why the author didn't just tell the story with a normal beginning, middle, and end, like real life. So I had to wrack my brain to figure it out myself. I realized this is what was so cool: Each of the three stories was completely spell-binding. I'd leave one exciting story and be immediately dropped into another story that was just as exciting. The drama is non-stop, yet it's never over-the-top or gratuitous. There's tension out the ying-yang. So how does O'Farrell manage to make everything seem like a cliffhanger? This isn't a thriller, so how does that work? Answer: She's such an amazing writer, she makes you feel like every single scene is intense and important. She makes sure you have no choice but to read on, to glue your eyes to the page. You gobble up the secrets as you try in vain to figure out where the story is going. The ending is a whopper.

Like me best!
Each story was saying, "Like me the best!" "I do, I do!", I yelled back. I wasn't lying. I like each one the best. One story would grab my attention and hold on to it tight, and I was mesmerized, hypnotized, and immersed in its sea of drama. And then in the very next paragraph, I'd be in another world and on full alert again. It felt smooth and oddly peaceful, this floating on top of her words, peeking into the souls of these intriguing characters.

I hear a symphony
The story is so creative, the writing so good. The fact that O'Farrell could come up with such an amazing storyline and could intertwine the three voices so artfully just left me in awe. It's like a symphony where there are a bunch of solos, all different instruments, all equally rich and unique, and then they play together and it's dynamite.

A feisty kiddo
As a kid, Esme is quirky, feisty, independent. She's engaged in the world with such zest and intensity it's hard not to love her. It's her misfortune to be raised in 1930s Scotland, where life is full of rules. Esme doesn't fit the mold of what a girl should act like, and this can get her in trouble.

60 years later…
As an adult, Esme is an enigma. What's she going to be like now, as she is suddenly being collected up from the loony bin by her grand-niece, Iris, whom she has never met? Is Esme dangerous? How will she react to the free world?

Just imagine yourself in her shoes
Iris's story grabbed me, too. She's so earnest, curious, wary, and overwhelmed. And she has her own secrets. But never mind her various interesting feelings'just imagine having a stranger who has spent 60 years in a loony bin come stay with you! That, right there. THAT! That's what has me bowing to O'Farrell. What an irresistible storyline she has created!

Go into it blind
I don't want to give away any of the plot, which is sort of complicated but still very accessible. (I just love literary fiction that is accessible!) It's great to go into this one blind. Just know that it's a haunting story about siblings, secrets, guilt. We get to see the past through both Esme's and her sister's eyes, and we get to see the present through both Esme's and her grand-niece's eyes. I love it when we get to see what's going on from two points of view.

Why this book?
I read this book because I was high on O'Farrell's memoir, I Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death. I knew her language fits me'it makes me feel all floaty and it makes my soul all happy. And as I said, I love crazy and I love loony bins'as any zealous ex-Psych major would.

Hopping!
Beauteous language. Complex, juicy plot. Intriguing characters. Surprises. This book delivers all that, and it swept me away into another world. I couldn't put it down. Yes, it's pogo-stick time, as I hop on over to my all-time favorites pile and gleefully toss this book onto it!