Items related to THE KEEPSAKE
In hypnotic and mesmerizing language, Kirsty Gunn explores the dark world of a young girl who has grown up with a mother dependent on storytelling and the oblivion of addiction to cope with the memory of lost love, the girl's father. Raised on deceptive tales of happiness, the younger woman is drawn into and begins to relive the real story of pain, abandonment, and the tyranny of desire. As her life spirals out of control, the tangled yarn of her mother's past begins to unravel, until finally she can come to tell a story that is her own. This luminous and disturbing novel reveals the terrible intimacy of family love and the redemptive power of storytelling.
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Review:
The Keepsake is a strange, hypnotic book, a tale of sexual obsession dressed in such beautiful language that the reader is swept into its universe willing or not. Kirsty Gunn is fearless, wading into such unsavory topics as imprisonment, rape, torture, and incest to tell the story of a nameless female narrator caught up in the obsessions of an aging psychotic. The book begins with the memory of a beautiful café, but whether the memory belongs to the young woman or to her mother is difficult to tell. The narrator seems to be assuming her mother's life, her own memories jumbling with those of her mother, from the café she had frequented to the destructive love affair she embarked upon.
From Library Journal:
Memories of mother bleed into the history of the narrator's own disastrous affair, and, as the details pile up in phantasmagoric prose, it becomes increasingly probable that the man to whom she surrenders her body and her will is the same man her mother loved--her father. The Keepsake is a disturbing novel, a garden of perversions made weirdly compelling by the author's unheated approach.
Gunn (Rain, LJ 2/15/95) creates a sensation akin to drifting under the influence of a powerful drug. The writing flows beautifully and deliciously, gradually revealing a tale of obsession, addiction, and abuse. The narrator is the daughter of a lovely (and nameless) young woman who fled her abusive father by eloping with an equally abusive husband. "Like all the frightened women who run frantically towards the future...all they meet is memory." After her husband leaves, the woman escapes into drugs and dreams but manages to maintain a deep and strong connection with her daughter. Raised on tales of passion and abandonment, the daughter knows nothing else and eventually replicates her mother's life. "Repeating is a truth of nature, like one flat cloud forming in the sky after its sister. They are not identical, but in the blue sky they are the same." The story is disturbing until the end, when redemption seems within reach. Recommended for public libraries.?Kimberly G. Allen, networkMCI Lib., Washington, D.C.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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- PublisherGranta Books
- Publication date1997
- ISBN 10 186207013X
- ISBN 13 9781862070134
- BindingHardcover
- Edition number1
- Number of pages224
- Rating
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Book Description Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. The Keepsake This book is in very good condition and will be shipped within 24 hours of ordering. The cover may have some limited signs of wear but the pages are clean, intact and the spine remains undamaged. This book has clearly been well maintained and looked after thus far. Money back guarantee if you are not satisfied. See all our books here, order more than 1 book and get discounted shipping. Seller Inventory # 7719-9781862070134
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Book Description Hardcover. Condition: Used; Very Good. Dispatched, from the UK, within 48 hours of ordering. Though second-hand, the book is still in very good shape. Minimal signs of usage may include very minor creasing on the cover or on the spine. Seller Inventory # CHL1380555
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Book Description Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. This book is in very good condition and will be shipped within 24 hours of ordering. The cover may have some limited signs of wear but the pages are clean, intact and the spine remains undamaged. This book has clearly been well maintained and looked after thus far. Money back guarantee if you are not satisfied. See all our books here, order more than 1 book and get discounted shipping. Seller Inventory # 6545-9781862070134
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Book Description Befriedigend/Good: Durchschnittlich erhaltenes Buch bzw. Schutzumschlag mit Gebrauchsspuren, aber vollständigen Seiten. / Describes the average WORN book or dust jacket that has all the pages present. Seller Inventory # M0186207013X-G
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Book Description Hardcovers. Condition: Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Fine. First Edition. First edition, first prnt. Unread copy in Fine condition in a Fine dustjacket with an archival cover. Gunn's second book. Seller Inventory # 1200421
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Book Description Hard Cover. Condition: Near Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine. First Edition. First edition. Signed by author without inscription. A very nice copy. 1997 Hard Cover. 213 pp. Returning again and again in dream and imagination to the closed rooms of childhood, a daughter gradually comes to an understanding of the terrible intimacy of families. Raised on her mother's dreams and stories of happiness with a father she never knew, she relives her mother's story. Signed by author. Seller Inventory # 2281849
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