When Anomaly, Anne Fleming's much-anticipated first novel, was published in hardcover, critics raved. "Sentence by sentence, Anne Fleming is one of the finest writers I've ever read," stated the Globe and Mail. "Fleming's ability to fully inhabit the consciousness of her characters is flawless," proclaimed Kirkus Reviews. Now the critically acclaimed novel is available in a redesigned paperback edition. Anomaly explores the notion of "sisterhood" and the loss of innocence: in particular, how two girls navigate their relationship; and, more generally, the effect of turbulent times on four women whose lives span three distinct generations.
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From Publishers Weekly
Sisters Carol and Glynnis Riggs are as different as two girls can be: at age seven, Glynnis is a confident wisecracker, while eight-year-old Carol—an albino—conceals her outcast frustration behind a pudgy, teary, clumsy exterior. Her anger peaks one day, and she causes an accident that crushes her younger sister's leg. Now the sisters, both anomalies, must find ways to negotiate their fraught relationship as they suffer through their adolescence in mid-1970s Canada. Carol dyes her hair black, becomes death-obsessed and takes up with a punk rocker, while Glynnis contends with her permanently disabled leg and nascent lesbian feelings. Sections focusing on the girls' mother, Rowena, and her growing interest in the ministry are less compelling, as are those devoted to an elderly neighbor's memories of serving as a nurse during WWI. However, Fleming (Pool-Hopping and Other Stories) charts the sisters' progress with a sharp ear for the thoughts, language and cruelties of children and teens: there's nothing precious about these growing pains, and the two central characters are exquisitely drawn. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Booklist
Eminently readable, this tale brings to life an apparently typical middle-class family in suburban Toronto in the second half of the twentieth century. It also tells the story of Miss Balls, a close family friend whose happiest time was as a nursing sister in the war, when she discovered real love. Fleming's use of the varying female voices (cf. Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible) succeeds wonderfully in revealing just how untypical the family really is. To begin with, their middle child, Carol, is albino; how she acts out because of the endless teasing in her peer group has long-ranging effects on the rest of the family, especially on her sister, Glynnis. The novel opens when the sisters are eight and seven, and it takes them through the pain of childhood and its cruelties to the greater pain of adolescence, with first loves and the recognition of sexual identities. Strongly evoking time and place (cf. Ann-Marie MacDonald's The Way the Crow Flies, 2003), this first novel is a triumph of language and story. Maureen O'Connor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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