- Hardcover: 341 pages
- Publisher: HarperCollins Canada / Not Applicable; 1st Edition edition (Jun 23 1993)
- ISBN-10: 0002242516
- ISBN-13: 978-0002242516
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
When Canadian astronaut Barbara Urie blasts into space, her disaster-relief worker husband is too busy to attend, and her adult children, Helen and Paul, are too conflicted to turn up, so NASA provides actors to stand in for her family at the Florida launch site. Naturally, this launches the horrified children into a whole new layer of identity crisis in Catherine Bush's Gen-X treatise, Minus Time. It's not that the Uries are a dysfunctional family--indeed Barbara, husband David, and engineering student son Paul are all hyper-achievers. But daughter Helen just wants to be normal, and while her mother makes history orbiting in space, she joins a radical group of animal liberationists and desperately pretends to have a normal, sitcom-perfect home life.
Minus Time offers glimmers of the themes of risk and safety that define Bush's follow-up novel, The Rules of Engagement, and doesn't shy away from sweeping themes like what it means to grow up Canadian in the shadow of U.S. culture. But at its rawest, Minus Time reveals the confusion and rage of a woman who can't quite forgive her mother for fulfilling career dreams at the expense of a dubious and elusive family ideal: "One day [Helen] pulled out Madame Bovary, which she read in hours, haunted afterward not by Emma but Emma's daughter, left behind at the end, ignored and half-wild, who had no clothes that fit her and had never been taught to read. What, she asked the dead and faraway M. Flaubert, was going to happen to her?" --Deirdre Hanna --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
From Publishers Weekly
An extreme case of emotional--and literal--distance occupies Bush in this provocative, if at times overwrought debut. Set in the plausible present day, the story is alternately narrated by and descriptive of 20-year-old Toronto resident Helen Urie, whose mother Barbara is one of two history-making astronauts out to set a record for time spent orbiting the earth. The tale opens during "minus time," the countdown to the launch that carries Barbara and her partner to their space station. Helen henceforth communicates with her mother via telephone and satellite feed. Readers learn that Barbara's unusual detachment was presaged by her intense interest in studying science during Helen's and her brother's childhood; both siblings and their father felt they took a back seat to Barbara's ambitions. (This scenario yields debatable suggestions that career mothers, no matter how capable, cheat their families of attention.) It is often difficult to feel sorry for Helen: her excessive celebrity is unconvincing, as is her paranoia about the media, which eventually drives her underground to anonymously befriend a subversive environmental group. Still, after a long and low-key buildup of Helen's suppressed grievances, Bush arrives at a strong resolution that reunites the Urie family, figuratively at least.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
2.5 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)
1.0 out of 5 stars
Desperation read, Mar 12 2012
By Me - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Minus Time (High Risk Books) (Paperback)
I have been forcing myself to read this book the past week -- simply because I have nothing else in the house that I haven't read at least five times before!!!! Believe me, I am forcing myself to read this book -- can barely manage five or six pages at a time before I have to refrain from hurling it across the room.
0 of 3 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
It's a pleasure to read this novel, Mar 23 2003
By Arthur - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Minus Time: A Novel (Paperback)
Minus Time is a novel featuring a broken family. Barbara is an astronauts and David is a "scientist". Their son and daughter, Paul and Helen, basically have not seen the parents for years. Throughout the story, it can clearly show that the two teenagers are a bit upset as well, they are depressed because they do not see their parents. They have the feeling of being isolated and lonely. Helen even feel that she does not really belongs to the family because her parents will choose to meet their desire rather than caring the kids. From the adult's view to look at this novel, it is a great personal achievement where both parents are able to meet their goals and do the job they desire for. Barbara became the first Canadian-astronauts, and David was able to explore various natural disasters. The story is filled with emotions, including character feeling and the sense of achievement. It was truly an upset where a family is basically separate. Yet, it is the way to bring out the theme.
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