Imperfect Birds: A Novel
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- ISBN13: 9781594487514
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
A powerful and redemptive novel of like and family tree, from the leader of the bestselling Blue Shoe, Grace (Eventually), and Operating Instructions.
Rosie Ferguson is seventeen and ready to delight in the summer before her senior year of high school. She’s intelligent-she aced AP physics; powerful-a ex- state-ranked tennis doubles champion; and gorgeous. She is, in fleeting, everything her mother, Elizabeth, hoped she could be. The family tree’s go to Landsdale, with stepfather James in tow, hadn’t been as bumpy as Elizabeth feared.
But as the school year draws to a close, there are disturbing signs that the life Rosie claims to be leading is a sham, and that Elizabeth’s hopes for her daughter to remain immune from the pull of the darker impulses of drugs and alcohol are dashed. Slowly and against their will, Elizabeth and James are forced to confront the fact that Rosie has been lying to them-and that her deceptions will have profound consequences.
This is Anne Lamott’s most honest and heartrending novel yet, exploring our human quest for tie and salvation as it reveals the traps that can befall all of us.
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Anne gives us another peek into the modern American family tree, albeit one living in the Bay area.
The characters are readily identifiable – right simple-going California hippies – and the tale plausible but not as fresh as past fiction offerings from Ms. Lamott.
Reader’s Rating: 4 / 5
I was looking forwards to reading this book but establish it extremely weak. There is so much exposition that the tale stalls… Maybe if Lamott had had a more vigilant editor it would have helped, but I establish it really embarrassing to read this self-indulgent work.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
If you are at all familiar with any of Anne Lamott’s non-fiction books, this novel will have a very familiar ring to it. It tackles the themes of addiction, recovery, spirituality, 12-step programs and enabling.
The novel is about Rosie, a 17 year ancient adolescent who has her parents wrapped around her fingers. She is heavily into drugs but is lying to her parents about the extent of her drug use, cheating on her urinalyses and is a fantastic manipulator and and brilliant with triangulation. Her mother, Elizabeth, and her step-father James, are at their wit’s end. Rosie’s father, Andrew, died when she was a young child.
Elizabeth is a recovering alcoholic who has two years clean time. She has a feeling of emptiness and has never felt whole since Andrew’s death. Her rocky relationship with Rosie makes her feel fragile and distrustful of her own gut feelings. James is very grounded and tries to get Elizabeth to be more secure in her boundaries with Rosie and to trust her instincts, not to any fantastic aim.
Rosie has two two best friends, Alice and Jodie. As the book opens, Jodie has just concluded three months at a rehab facility. They are all three using drugs, are sexually active and sometimes trading sex for drugs. They don’t use condoms and seem unaware of the dangers of unsafe sex.
Elizabeth doesn’t work. She and the family tree live in the vicinity of Marin County. James has a weekly show on National Public Radio and has published one novel. Elizabeth is jealous of Jame’s new success with his radio program. Up to this time, she has considered herself his muse and now feels lost, her place in the family tree insecure. Marital stress is at an all time high due to Rosie’s lying, splitting and manipulation. Elizabeth, especially, is very enabling of Rosie’s behaviors.
The book discusses a lot about recovery and there is a lot of spirituality-centered talk in it as well. Elizabeth’s best friends are ministers and they are the ones that Rosie is referred to for counseling. Elizabeth, James, and their friends all used to drink together years ago and are all in recovery. Elizabeth is active in Alcoholics Anonymous. Additionally, she suffers from depression and is on tablets for her psychiatric issues.
Rosie tests Jame’s and Elizabeth’s limits to the max. She breaks curfew, sneaks out of the house in the middle of the night, questions Elizabeth to withhold information from James, and generally lies, steals, and is rude, disrespectful and snide to both Elizabeth and James. She is a bright girl and a whiz at physics who also reads Robertson Davies and Maria Rilke. Despite her intelligence, she has small or no insight about the extent of her substance problems.
The book does an brilliant job of showing the strain and difficulties posed by a drug abusing adolescent. There is too much about spirituality in the novel for my taste, but that is to be expected in a book written by Lamott.
The novel very excellently shows the grip of addiction, the pain that it causes loved ones and the strains it causes on marital and family tree relationships. Lamott is the perfect writer to tackle a topic like this, a topic that is upsetting, frightening and life-threatening. This is a excellent book, one that every parent will benefit from.
Reader’s Rating: 4 / 5
Parents of teenagers as well as Lamott fans will likely find this book a compelling read. Imperfect Birds may be her best novel, the most mature and well-constructed. The tale seems to meander at times yet it builds on itself to a powerful and moving completion. The narrative mirrors family tree life with its day-to-day anecdotal flow and then abrupt realizations that people have changed, dramatically, under our noses–it was gradually happening all along.
Lamott has a unique talent for inhabiting the emotional states of her characters. Her presentation of the inner life of a teenage girl is inventive and illuminating. Likewise her portrayal of the girl’s mother, who is a familiar protagonist in Lamott’s fiction, but less narcissistic and more self-aware this time around. To fully reveal her characters’ inner lives, Lamott’s writing style has become more creative and original than ever. But, it also needed more editing at times. Ironically, Lamott thanks her editors in her acknowledgements, but the poor editing was the largest flaw in the book. There were several sentences that seemd reworked but not cleaned up so an adjective might be repeated twice, or a verb was missing. The lack of clarity wasn’t simply an evocation of a druggy, or nervous, state of mind; it appeared to be a lack of final polishing of various passages–including the first paragraphs of the book, an awkward, incomprehensible description of a parking lot. But one shouldn’t be place off by persons first paragraphs, because by the next page the tale becomes gripping as it delves into the frightening and odd behaviors of a group of teenagers standing in the town square.
The final effect of Imperfect Birds is intense and moving. The tale is very much alarming from beginning to end. At first, the drug use by high school students seems hard to judge. Yet Lamott does a masterful job of painting a textured reality in which it can all take place to even the most well-meaning people. Imperfect Birds is an vital wake-up call to families not just in Marin County, but throughout the U.S.–the “United States, which consumes more drugs than any additional country” in the world. (San Francisco Chronicle, (4/10/10).
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5
Entering her high school senior year, seventeen year ancient Rosie Ferguson is a high achieving teen. Rosie is gorgeous, an A student and a excellent athlete. Her mother Elizabeth is proud of her daughter.
Elizabeth feared the go to Lansdale in Marin County, but she, her spouse James, and her daughter rumor has it that adjusted rather easily though she prays Rosie stays away from the youth drug culture as she knows she herself uses alcohol to numb emotional excess. She and James vigilantly watch Rosie for signs of abuse and use as the square sells everything. But, in spite of their vigil, they fail to notice her daughter’s mendacity until it is nearly too late. Risking their marriage, James and Elizabeth intervene while Rosie objects.
Rosie and Elizabeth return (see Rosie) in this profound gut wrenching family tree drama. The tale line captures teen behavior with a strong need to snub parental power while also demanding privacy and the predictable subsequent parental result. The lead trio is an awesome combination of like, defiance, and rage as Anne Lamott provides an intelligent psychological family tree drama.
Harriet Klausner
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5