- Hardcover: 336 pages
- Publisher: Doubleday Canada; 1st Edition edition (July 30 2002)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0385658028
- ISBN-13: 978-0385658027
- Product Dimensions: 21.1 x 15 x 3.3 cm
- Shipping Weight: 454 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #828,095 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
English-born, Toronto-raised, and Oxford-educated Camilla Gibb won heaps of praise and a Toronto Book Award for her debut novel, Mouthing the Words, which told a harrowing yet humorous tale of an abused girl growing up. For her sophomore effort, the curiously titled The Petty Details of So-and-so's Life, Gibb is back on familiar ground but with double the trouble. This novel follows the dysfunctional childhood and subsequently twisted adulthood of siblings Blue and Emma. When their dad gets fired from his job as an architect, he goes haywire, imagining he's an inventor, though he can't get anyone else to believe in his ideas. Eventually, he takes off, leaving the kids to fend for themselves as their to mother sinks further into alcoholism.
While Emma seeks a surrogate family, Blue goes in search of his dad--and unfortunately for Blue, he occasionally succeeds in finding him. Each encounter with his father, a nasty piece of work, pushes Blue further down the path of self-destruction. Emma, meanwhile, fares better in her struggle to overcome the burdens of her personal history. Though leavened with less of the humour of her first novel, Gibb's tracing of Blue and Emma's separate paths allows her to explore how two children can respond quite differently to the same situation, and the "petty details" of their lives are often wondrously weird. --Nigel Hunt
Review
“Suggestive of Wilde at his spirited best . . . Gibb’s narrative leaves you poised — sometimes within a single sentence — between laughter and heartbreak.” — The Globe and Mail
Praise for Mouthing the Words:
“Mouthing the Words rings with an authority rarely found in first novels. By dint of Gibb’s lush, visceral prose, Mouthing the Words persuasively charts one woman’s journey back to wholeness.” — The Washington Post
“Gibb’s debut novel is both gut-wrenching and gut-busting. Ridiculously good for a first novel.” — NOW Magazine
“Gibb scales her story small, twists her sentences into prickly, unsentimental assaults and ends up with a portrait of terrible, comic humanity.” — The New York Times
Praise for Mouthing the Words:
“Mouthing the Words rings with an authority rarely found in first novels. By dint of Gibb’s lush, visceral prose, Mouthing the Words persuasively charts one woman’s journey back to wholeness.” — The Washington Post
“Gibb’s debut novel is both gut-wrenching and gut-busting. Ridiculously good for a first novel.” — NOW Magazine
“Gibb scales her story small, twists her sentences into prickly, unsentimental assaults and ends up with a portrait of terrible, comic humanity.” — The New York Times
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Most helpful customer reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Gripping,
By Lynda Taller-Wakter (Ottawa, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Petty Details of So-and-So's Life (Paperback)
This book grabbed me from the beginning until the end. I could not put this book down because of Gibb's intelligent prose, hard wit, humour, imagery and fragile characters. The characters are so well-defined and crafted, I easily became enmeshed in their lives for what was too short a time period. I was so gripped by this book, my husband couldn't wait to read it. If you loved Anne-Marie MacDonald's Fall on Your Knees, you will fall for this character-driven drama that takes you behind-the-scenes of dysfunctional family life and into the hearts and minds of characters that beg to be loved. My only complaint about Petty Details is that it was 100 pages too short. Gibb herself is fascinating. I was so intrigued by her writing, I wanted to learn more about her and was not surprised to learn she has a PhD in social anthropology but pursued a career in writing. Smart choice.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Buy this Book!,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Petty Details of So-and-So's Life (Paperback)
A compelling read...dark, moody and memorable.Camilla Gibb is a gifted writer.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Life is Petty,
By David Hamburg (st. laurent, Quebec Canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Petty Details of So-and-So's Life (Paperback)
The Petty Details of So-and-so's Life, by Camilla GibbIf great writing ultimately exposes the true condition of human existence - no holds barred, then Camilla Gibb's stunning novel, The Petty Details of So-and-so's Life, succeeds on a grand scale. One needn't search this book for those sought after kernels of truth - they are all abound...the good, the bad and the really funny. The book is about the painful and lonely struggle of two essentially abandoned siblings, Emma and Blue Taylor, bound together on both a psychic and emotional level that is as inspiring as it is heartbreaking. But is shared pain enough to support them on their quests to emerge from the ruins of Dysfunction? Ms. Gibb's characters lead the reader on a hard-edged journey of the picaresque that explores the two rather disparate roads taken. Emma battles to succeed in the comfort of upper class life - the right man, the nice house and a promising academic career. Meanwhile, Blue, the tattoo artist, discovers meaning - at least for a while, but in a far less respectable venue. How does strip-joint sound? But the haunting echoes of their past are never far away; Deranged Dad wastes away in the junkyard, pathetically clinging to delusions of grandeur and mom is an ex-hippie who personifies all of the failed ideals of the Peace and Love Generation. Everybody has skeletons in their closets, but what do you when yours are out on the loose? Welcome to a day in the life of the Taylor kids. Gibb's writing is clear and crisp, with hilarious bits strewn throughout the novel. Let's face it - sometimes pathetic is just plain funny, it's also a nice break from the intensity of a novel that never lets down. Petty Details is the voice of the disaffected, the disenfranchised, the distressed...it is the voice of humanity. David Hamburg
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