- Hardcover: 256 pages
- Publisher: Doubleday Canada (Mar 13 2001)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 038525928X
- ISBN-13: 978-0385259286
- Product Dimensions: 18.5 x 11.7 x 2.5 cm
- Shipping Weight: 318 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,139,956 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
Inside Out is Evelyn Lau's distinctively provocative reflection on her life at the ripe old age of 30. And a ripe life it has been. Lau hit the Canadian Lit scene running in 1989 with Runaway: Diary of a Street Kid. She hasn’t stopped since. Lau followed up that best-seller with the short-story collections Fresh Girls and Choose Me, a novel, Other Women, and poetry, Oedipal Dreams. Inside Out is a series of personal essays that plunder Lau's experiences with bulimia, depression, drug addiction, and a libel lawsuit. She examines her relationship with her overly critical mother and adored, but ineffectual father, which eventually drove her from home into a brutalizing existence on the streets of Vancouver. She describes the years she spent as a prostitute--the risks that occupation entailed and, ironically, the comfort it offered in its ritualized behaviors: "It was a way of cutting off feeling, of transforming into another person, the cold person I wanted to be. Sometimes I felt so little it vaguely worried me, at the same time as it thrilled me--I felt like a field covered in snow, without a footprint or a living creature for as far as the eye could see. All the pain glittered and then it dissolved." The centrepiece is the anatomization of a widely publicized lawsuit launched by her much older former lover, W.P. Kinsella, author of Shoeless Joe, after she published an article about their affair. It is her reconnaissance of the variegated terrain of desire--for the body, for love, for a home, for emotional vulnerability, for a father, to write--that ties these essays together.
Lau writes coolly on some rather burning topics. Despite being a paragon of detachment, she cunningly manages to lure the reader into the raw place at the core of these soul-destroying experiences. Through it all, she presents an impassioned defence of the writer's right, in the execution of her art, to expose and bleed the permeable boundary between the past and present, the public and the intimate, for which the body is the concrete form. Others may lay claim to it as an object of critique or desire, while simultaneously it serves as the dwelling place for the observing (even retaliatory) ego. --Diana Kuprel
Review
Praise for Evelyn Lau:
"This startling young writer is an acute observer—she can see people
through their clothes—alarmingly talented."—Ottawa Sun
"Lau blends startling prose talent with a fierce determination to be true."—The Globe and Mail
"Lau's writing is cool and beautiful and bristling with insight, she writes one of the prettiest sentences around, but the suffering underneath is obvious."—Vancouver Sun
"Evelyn Lau writes like she was touched by the wing of a lost angel."—Pat Conroy
"This startling young writer is an acute observer—she can see people
through their clothes—alarmingly talented."—Ottawa Sun
"Lau blends startling prose talent with a fierce determination to be true."—The Globe and Mail
"Lau's writing is cool and beautiful and bristling with insight, she writes one of the prettiest sentences around, but the suffering underneath is obvious."—Vancouver Sun
"Evelyn Lau writes like she was touched by the wing of a lost angel."—Pat Conroy
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Customer Reviews
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Most helpful customer reviews
1.0 out of 5 stars
Not impressed at all. Paid for book, recieved nothing.,
This review is from: Inside Out: Reflections on a life so far (Paperback)
I purchased this item over a month ago.I have yet to recieve it. I have tried to contacted the seller a week ago to ask if they have sent it, can confirm the address, or have any idea why it would be taking so long and have any idea as to it's whereabouts, and have recieved no answer at all. Will not be purchasing anything from them in the future.
5.0 out of 5 stars
The continuing journey,
By wordfiendca (Toronto, Canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Inside Out: Reflections on a life so far (Hardcover)
I would highly recommend this book to anyone who read Runaway and wanted to know what happened to Evelyn Lau. This book tells the reader about what has happened in the 10 years since Runaway was published. She discusses the long-term effects in her life of being a prostitute and the depression that she copes with. The language that Ms. Lau uses to describe her emotions, her perceptions and her thoughts is absolutely beautiful. In my opinion, she is one of the great writers of our time. However, this book is not light reading. It discusses very serious issues and Ms. Lau is not afraid to explore her humanity within the essays that she writes. An excellent book!
5.0 out of 5 stars
i'm much better at reading than writing,
By Vanessa (Canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Inside Out: Reflections on a life so far (Hardcover)
but I really loved this book, and felt it needed a review.It's a very quick read, and covers alot of Runaway: diary of a street kid. So some people may not like the repetativness of it. She talks about depression, parents (and her relationship with them) her struggle with prostitution and more. It isn't a happy read, but if like me, you do suffer from depression and like to read something you can identify with it's good. She also talks about herself as a writer, why she writes how she almost stopped..
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