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| Graphic from: http://www.nytimes.com/ imagepages/2013/06/09/books/review/ 0609-bks-KINGSOLVER-cover.html |
In We Are All Completely
Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler, Rosemary Cooke begins her story in
the middle. She is in college in a cafeteria where she meets Harlow who is
angry at her boyfriend and having a tantrum. Rosemary defends Harlow during her
arrest and gets arrested herself. We soon learn Rosemary is broken, in a way.
She is not close with her parents and estranged from her brother and sister. It
is the mystery of Rosemary's relationship with her parents and how her brother,
Lowell, and sister, Fern go missing that drives the story forward. When
Rosemary's narrative circles back to the beginning of the story, we learn that
her "sister", Fern, is a chimpanzee brought into the home to be
raised as her "twin" for an experiment her scientist father was
conducting in the seventies.
We Are All Completely
Beside Ourselves is a wonderful coming of age novel that is interesting
both in the style of the narrative and in the story, containing a powerful
message. The title refers to the fact that, when placed beside humans,
animals--particularly apes--are not that different. Growing up, Rosemary's
father's lab assistants endlessly compare Fern's progress with her own. While
Fern reaches certain landmarks before Rosemary--such as walking and
"talking" (really signing)--Rosemary's growth soon outperforms Ferns
with little fanfare and she grows jealous of Fern's attention which leads to Fern's
removal from the family. In doing this, Rosemary asserts her alpha role in her
family pack, not unlike how later, Fern becomes the alpha animal in her lab
"family". When Rosemary tells us the end of her story, we learn the
reason for her brother's disappearance. Everything, from Rosemary's inability
to fit in with her peers to her brother's absence, her mother's emotional
distance, and her father's depression traces back to Fern's removal from the
family and Rosemary spends the remainder of the book trying to set it right.
Fowler has penned a page-turner here. Her prose is artful
and easy to read, something to which, as an author, I aspire. The narrator is
so candid in her guilt, the story reads like a written confession, which is where
the interest lies. We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves is a book with social conscience,
prompting us to think about the connection between people and animals and how,
when we compare them side-by-side with ourselves, we are not so essentially
different.
About the Author
Elise Abram, English teacher and former archaeologist, has been writing for as long as she can remember, but it wasn't until she was asked to teach Writer's Craft in 2001 that she began to seriously write. Her first novel, THE GUARDIAN, was partially published as a Twitter novel a few summers back (and may be accessed at @RKLOGYprof). Nearly ten years after its inception Abram decided it was time to stop shopping around with traditional publication houses and publish PHASE SHIFT on her own.
Download PHASE SHIFT for the price of a tweet. Visit http://www.eliseabram.com, click on the button, tweet or Facebook about my novel and download it for FREE!
About the Author
Elise Abram, English teacher and former archaeologist, has been writing for as long as she can remember, but it wasn't until she was asked to teach Writer's Craft in 2001 that she began to seriously write. Her first novel, THE GUARDIAN, was partially published as a Twitter novel a few summers back (and may be accessed at @RKLOGYprof). Nearly ten years after its inception Abram decided it was time to stop shopping around with traditional publication houses and publish PHASE SHIFT on her own.
Download PHASE SHIFT for the price of a tweet. Visit http://www.eliseabram.com, click on the button, tweet or Facebook about my novel and download it for FREE!
