- Hardcover: 321 pages
- Publisher: McClelland & Stewart (Sep 14 2004)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0771017529
- ISBN-13: 978-0771017520
- Product Dimensions: 21.3 x 14.5 x 3.3 cm
- Shipping Weight: 590 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #765,043 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
If you've ever endured the relentless pounding of a migraine headache, Claire's Head is a novel that will either offer temporary solace or plunge you deeper into an awareness of your pain. The hero of Catherine Bush's probing third novel is the youngest of three sisters, two of whom are second-generation migraine sufferers. A childhood of dark bedrooms and an ever-increasing number of food and air-quality restrictions have made Claire cautious and fastidious. This mild-mannered Toronto cartographer cannot enter a room without mentally mapping its dimensions and keeps putting off telling her boyfriend that she doesn't want a baby. When she receives an unexpected phone call, however, asking about the whereabouts of her eldest sister Rachel, Claire suddenly finds herself on a risky journey of emotional and spiritual self-discovery. Strong-willed, passionate, and unpredictable, Rachel has always refused to give into her own headaches. A freelance medical journalist based in New York City, she dared to have a child on her own (though she eventually gave her to the care of her middle sister, Allison), and she has experimented with every migraine cure imaginable--no matter how dangerous or off the wall. As Claire follows Rachel's rapidly vanishing trail--from a New Age healer in Amsterdam to Las Vegas's nightmare "Strip"--she gradually comes to a new understanding of her own headaches. By concentrating simply on her pain's constraints, as she always has, "she would lose sight of what it had given her, lose sight of part of herself."
Like Bush's two previous novels, Minus Time and The Rules of Engagement, Claire's Head is smart, sophisticated, and very polished. The problem is that Claire's head is not nearly as interesting as that of her missing sister. This becomes most evident in the section devoted to Rachel's last diary entries. While Rachel's rage and desperation explode off the page, Claire's muted reflections and endless cataloguing of insignificant detail bog down the otherwise quick pacing of the novel. --Lisa Alward
Review
“Science tries to measure it, but perhaps only literature can truly map the boundaries of pain, and its jealous dominion over us. In this suspenseful modern love story, Catherine Bush has also given us a wonderful fictional counterpart to Oliver Sacks’s classic study, Migraine.”
–Marni Jackson
“Catherine Bush's fiction is clear, humane, gripping, and unfailingly intelligent. She is one of our finest writers.”
–Barbara Gowdy
“It is her combination of deeply imaginative storytelling and a genius for tapping into the zeitgeist that makes Bush’s novels so compelling.”
–Toronto Life
“Meticulous, often beautiful prose.”
–Claire Messud, The Globe and Mail
“Bush writes novels as brainy as they are poignant. For my money, there is no higher recommendation.”
–Newsday
“Bush is an evocative writer who can create a sensuous atmosphere with a few well-chosen words.”
–Washington Post
“Bush’s descriptions are so irresistibly seductive that you can feel them in your bones.”
–Vancouver Sun
–Marni Jackson
“Catherine Bush's fiction is clear, humane, gripping, and unfailingly intelligent. She is one of our finest writers.”
–Barbara Gowdy
“It is her combination of deeply imaginative storytelling and a genius for tapping into the zeitgeist that makes Bush’s novels so compelling.”
–Toronto Life
“Meticulous, often beautiful prose.”
–Claire Messud, The Globe and Mail
“Bush writes novels as brainy as they are poignant. For my money, there is no higher recommendation.”
–Newsday
“Bush is an evocative writer who can create a sensuous atmosphere with a few well-chosen words.”
–Washington Post
“Bush’s descriptions are so irresistibly seductive that you can feel them in your bones.”
–Vancouver Sun
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Customer Reviews
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Most helpful customer reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars
A headache inducing novel,
By Alan Scheer (Toronto) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Claire's Head (Hardcover)
For about 150 pages this is a wonderful read. A powerful depictionof life for migraine sufferers, the novel operates as a mystery with the principal character searching for her sister, compatriot in suffering from crippling migraines. But then the author regurgitates the same information over and over again, we learn every detail and mood associated with migraines, page after page after page. The novel is too long and would have benifited by a tighter editing. By the second half of the book I just couldn't care anymore and I was seriously starting to develop a headache myself. There is no distance in the telling of this story, you feel like you are in the protagonist's head the whole time, and after a while this is not a very pleasant place to be. And after you start to figure out the rational for the search for the missing sister, you stop caring. Bush is not a great prose writing, but in the first half her story-telling is strong. There is just too much of it in the end.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
3.4 out of 5 stars (5 customer reviews) 4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
A headache inducing novel,
By Alan Scheer - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Claire's Head (Hardcover)
For about 150 pages this is a wonderful read. A powerful depictionof life for migraine sufferers, the novel operates as a mystery with the principal character searching for her sister, compatriot in suffering from crippling migraines. But then the author regurgitates the same information over and over again, we learn every detail and mood associated with migraines, page after page after page. The novel is too long and would have benifited by a tighter editing. By the second half of the book I just couldn't care anymore and I was seriously starting to develop a headache myself. There is no distance in the telling of this story, you feel like you are in the protagonist's head the whole time, and after a while this is not a very pleasant place to be. And after you start to figure out the rational for the search for the missing sister, you stop caring. Bush is not a great prose writing, but in the first half her story-telling is strong. There is just too much of it in the end. 2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
Great descriptions of migraines, but not a compelling story,
By The Daily Headache - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Claire's Head (Paperback)
Claire's Head is a stunning depiction headache pain and treatment, desperation, and hope. The novel is an examination of the relationship that someone with migraines has with him or herself and with others. Even if your headaches aren't migraines, the struggle is probably familiar.Yes, the descriptions of the headaches get old, The repetition might be annoying, but that's the point. Frequent disabling headaches are bothersome and do interrupt the plot - whether it is the plot of fictional characters or real people. If you have a hard time telling your loved ones what your headaches are like, pass this book on to them. There's no way anyone can deny the reality of the pain after seeing it spelled out so well in this novel. All that said, the story itself was not believable or particularly interesting! But reading struggles so similar to mine was engaging enough to make it worthwhile. 2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
a disappointing search,
By Tara M. Enever - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Claire's Head (Paperback)
i am a migraine sufferer, so when my partner bought this book for me, i was intensely curious. i delved right in, but like the reviewer above, although i found the first half to be well written, it became an incredibly mundane, draining, and finally, disappointing read.although bush's account of how painful and all-encompassing it is to suffer from migraines rang reasonably true, her prose quite literally became poisoned by it, through to the pointless ending that left me feeling empty and unsatisfied. i suppose the ending was intended to leave the reader with a sense of hope and peace, but i found it hokey and hollow. all that ridiculous searching for this?!! i also agree -with the other reviewer- that bush would have benefited from better editing. if bush's intention was for the reader to indeed find themselves inside claire's head, then she succeeded. however, she may not have considered the place she created is so overwhelmingly claustrophobic, that the reader just wants to get out, but is left with no way of doing so, that is, unless they abort the reading entirely. i had hope, so i read to the end, and was left with an utterly disappointed 'that's it?'. the best things claire's head has going for itself is it's first half, and the fact that in and of itself, it is a groundbreaking novel. |
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