- Paperback: 208 pages
- Publisher: Serpent's Tail (Aug 1 2004)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1852424567
- ISBN-13: 978-1852424565
- Product Dimensions: 19.9 x 13.2 x 1.5 cm
- Shipping Weight: 181 g
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #422,883 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
Lewis's third and final novel, published posthumously, is as dark and gritty as her 1994 debut, House Rules. Anonymous sex, drug use and abusive relationships abound in the story of a young prostitute whose real name readers never learn as she operates in a haze of alcohol and drugs, drifting through a series of encounters whose patterns she fails to recognize. Teenaged Nina, as she prefers to be called "in these situations," turns tricks in the parking lot of a train station before going home to her absent parents' house. A relationship with a sadomasochistic client, Gabriel, and his wife, Ingrid, eventually leads to Nina's arrest and committal to a psych ward, where she meets Beth, a sympathetic counselor. But the systems designed, in theory, to save Nina do her the most damage, as the police, the guards and Beth all forge sexual relationships with her. Her only escape is back into a world in which Gabriel's malevolent influence and Ingrid's need are unavoidable. Lewis's language is stripped to the bone, with fragmented sentences and an adolescent's vocabulary making this a chilling first-person account of an emotionally anesthetized girl compelled to continue her self-destruction. Searing, graphic and not for the faint of heart, Lewis's novel is a punch to the gut readers will feel long after the shock of its impact has subsided.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
"'Heather Lewis has written this novel with a power and pain almost unbearable, like some freak ass despondent Jesus nailing herself to the cross again and again. This novel is a triumph - tragic, horrifying, and a triumph!' Sapphire"
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For the longest time I didn't call it turning tricks. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
For the longest time I didn't call it turning tricks. Read the first page
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4.4 out of 5 stars (5 customer reviews)
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Brilliant, Mar 28 2005
By Constant Reader - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Notice (Paperback)
This was actually the second of three books that Heather Lewis wrote, as I understand it. This one was published last, and posthumously. After reading the book, it's no surprise that the author died at her own hand.This book is hard to read. It was hard to read the actual narrative, but that was almost cursory and not nearly as interesting as her ability to write from the perspective of her character. This is the best account of an internal struggle with dissociation I have read. Her style is so straightforward.
I finished the book in a day and haven't been able to get it out of my mind since. It's gorgeous.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Duly Noted, July 5 2006
By vaio - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Notice (Paperback)
Instead of giving a play-by-play of "Notice," I'll just point out a few reasons why "Notice" is superior to other books that address similar topics. Like...say..."Push."I think the main thing that made this story so difficult and effective for me was the narrator's detached and unaffected (?) presentation. There's something about the fact that she all along goes unnamed and we never get many details about her parents' special brand of terrible (the terrible that lands her where we find her at the novel's open) that creates in the reader a sort of desperate longing to know and protect her.
Then too, there's something in the way the unnamed narrator presents her horrific story. Even when she seems to get that what's happening to her is terrible, she never seems to get that what's happening to her is terrible. She distrusts, but then she ultimately reaches out and tries. And when she's hurt (no, brutalized) she tends to remain rather matter-of-fact. (And like many of the brutalized, she seems never to judge her brutalizers too harshly). I'm not sure how a character can be dry and matter-of-fact while at the same time expressing hurt beyond that which is commonly experienced, but this character manages to do it. And that makes the reader cry repeatedly.
This is a horrific and brutal topic. And Lewis handles it masterfully. I don't usually get all mushy and emotional over pain on top of hurt on top of pain on top of hurt. But I got all mushy and emotional over "Notice." And that says something about the skill with which this story is told.
8 of 10 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
creepy as hell, Jan 3 2005
By Rob Rockner - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Notice (Paperback)
This is unquestionably the most disturbing book I have ever read. I tend to think I deal with disturbing subject matter very well, but this book messed me up for days. It's revolting. I don't mean that it's badly written, or even that it's not worth reading, but you better know what you're getting into before you read it. If you can't deal with *extremely* graphic sexual violence, or you don't want to read about a girl on an absolutely relentless path of self-destruction, don't read this.
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