Disappearing Ingenue : The Misadventures of Eleanor Stoddard

Rating:
Summary: Lovely.
Review: Funny, heartfelt at times, moving, relatable. And absolute must for anyone who demands that their reading time is well spent. I really enjoyed this book and am on my way to find Pritchard's other titles.

Rating:
Summary: uneven.
Review: It's interesting when an author decides to write a collection of short stories about the same character. It frees them from conjoining the moments in a charcters life- as chapters often do, and allows the author a more open playing field in regards to point of view, and structure.
That said, in this collection, I would have enjoyed it much more if Pritchard decided to use one of the voices from the first three stories in the book, and continued on with one of them throughout. The remaining stories didn't live up to the expectations I gathered from the beginning. I was heartily dissappointed that the Eleanor she first introduces is NOTHING like the Eleanor the book ends with. I realize she grew up, but I missed the humor evoked in the first story.
Pritchard's experimentation with Eleanor's voice, though admirable, became old after awhile.
I recommend Pritchard's collection "Spirit Seizures" instead of this one.

Rating:
Summary: A stunning, one-of-a-kind book
Review: This is a brilliant, funny, terrifying, exhilarating knock-out of a book. The main character, Eleanor, is one of the most marvelous, complicated, endearing people I've ever met. And her friends and family, the people she runs into, are always surprising and yet completely believable. They are now so real to me that it's as if I knew them. I read Disappearing Ingenue, this first time, in a couple of days because I couldn't help tearing through it. But it's a book that asks to be reread. (Many times.)

It is so rare for a book of this depth and complexity to be such a delicious read, to have both laugh-out-loud jokes, and moments of recognition of the darkest, most inadmissable aspects of human life. Death and life, family and friends, hope and humiliation, love and work -- it's all here. The writing is stunningly inventive, and also absolutely readable. It does what a great book can: takes you to a place that is both unknown and familiar, enlarges your life and experience, makes it as if you've lived more lives than you could on your own.

The individual stories would be beautiful enough, but the remarkable thing is the way that they illuminate each other, and the way they then turn around to illuminate the rest of life. I was so happy when I finished it, so satisfied by the way all of the parts came together to make a complete whole. And the book keeps expanding in my mind, revealing new connections and implications.

I'm giving copies of this book to several friends, but I couldn't resist the impulse to tell you who are reading this about it as well. Please do yourself a favor and take a look at it. I am betting that you will be enchanted and amazed, as I was.