- Paperback: 192 pages
- Publisher: Somerville House, USA; 1st Edition edition (January 1989)
- ISBN-10: 0921051409
- ISBN-13: 978-0921051404
- Product Dimensions: 22 x 14.2 x 1.6 cm
- Shipping Weight: 281 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
The angels of Barbara Gowdy's grim first novel are an alcoholic housewife who dropped her first baby over Niagara Falls and Norma, Lou, and Sandy, the three dysfunctional daughters who came later. Presaged by another fatal drop (this time from a suburban roof), Falling Angels spirals back in time to the darkest scenes in the daughters' bizarre childhood. For example, Christmas 1959: the day their obnoxious cousin Mary Jane chose to share a newspaper clipping about the suspicious death of the brother they never knew they had. Or Disneyland 1961: the trip they never took because their violent, lunatic father insisted that they spend their two-week holiday in a homemade bomb shelter in the backyard instead.
Twisted yet poignant, Falling Angels reveals the same fascination with the grotesque that fuels Gowdy's later fiction. Lou's encounter with the neighbourhood psycho boy (who sticks a pencil up her vagina) anticipates the stories of sexual deviance in We So Seldom Look on Love. Her eerie coldness toward the infant boy she babysits and almost kills anticipates the distortion of maternal instinct in Gowdy's spectacular novel about elephants, The White Bone. As unrelenting a catalogue of woe as Ann-Marie MacDonald's Fall on Your Knees, Falling Angels also offers up moments of strange, exquisite beauty like Sandy's ride on a dirty old man's back or Lou's vision of her mother as a seagull circling the Falls.
All of these characters are teetering on the edges of normalcy--even the comparatively conventional Sandy (who can't resist sex with balding, married men whose names begin with R). Gowdy's gift is that she brings readers so close to the brink, enabling us to feel compassion for nymphomaniacs and child beaters rather than viewing them from a safe distance. --Lisa Alward --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
After opening on the 1969 funeral of a woman who fell or leaped from a rooftop, this narrative shifts to the 1950s; through her three daughters, we learn that she is an alcoholic who once dropped or threw an infant son over Niagara Falls. "Scrupulously and evocatively wrought, with fully formed characters, it poses but does not quite resolve a mystery rooted in character and fate," said PW.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Just do it.,
This review is from: Falling Angels (Paperback)
Read both this book and The Romantic as soon as possible. The emotions that these books invoked within me are indesricable.I've purchased The Romantic just to have it within arms reach. Falling Angels will be added to my shelf soon enough as well.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Disturbing and haunting,
By A Customer
This review is from: Falling angels (Paperback)
Each time I got to a new "event" in this book, I wanted to put it down but kept reading instead, intent on finding out what came next. I was reminded at times of McCrae's "The Bark of the Dogwood" with its similar themes of family dysfunction, infanticide, humror, wit, and bizarre and disturbing themes. I don't think Barbara Gowdy is given the credit she deserves for having tackled the tough subject and for having put her chacaters under a microscope. Highly recommended for those who like a peek inside what it's like to be on the "other side."
4.0 out of 5 stars
"Snappy Dialogue, richly worded",
By A Customer
This review is from: Falling Angels (Paperback)
I loved this book. The three main charactures of this book are sisters growing up in a very disfunctual family in the 60's. I caught myself laughing out loud so many times, at the authors use of humor during some very un-humorous moments in the book. The characters are real, and reminded me of the different emotions I felt growing up. I think it is a gift for an author to write of shrewd and tragic situations with a sense of humor at the same time. If you enjoy a book that "you cant put down"...this is a book for you. I am excited to read more from this author.
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