Rating: 
Summary: VERY ODD ? BUT IN GOOD WAYS?
Review: ...and that's a complement. The style employed by the author in this short, discomforting novel suits the story - and the characters - perfectly. This is one of those `finds' that I noticed on the shelf in a bookstore, read the inner flap, and decided to take a chance on it, without first delving into the book itself. The language and syntax might have put me off if I had given the book a quick thumb-through - and that would have been a pity.The story concerns one of the most dysfunctional, disturbed families I've come across - and not in the `they slaughtered their neighbors and everyone says they were such quiet people' sense. This is a bit of a horror story, but much more subtle and subdued than that. Each member of the family, in their own quiet way, is a bit of a sociopath. The matriarch of the family is long dead; the father sits most of the time in a vegetative state; the oldest daughter (referred to only as `aunt' in the book) has continued living in the house in order to care for him; the youngest daughter, Elise, has been missing for years, having run away when she was younger, only to return in the `present' of the novel with a child fathered by an un-named lover. The child is ill - chills, fever, a bloody rash - and Elise doesn't quite seem to know how to care for him. She spends most of her time searching through the house for something mysteriously unidentified. The aunt is beside herself - she feels that she has been put upon for years, left `holding the bag' in caring for their father and the house in which they live, `and now this'. The story unfolds in a very choppy manner, depicted perfectly in the author's chosen prose - it realistically reproduces the shattered thought processes of all those involved, as well as the unpredictability of the events. I've come across a couple of other novels over the last few years that have been very successful at putting the reader inside the head of a character (or in this case, a set of characters as well as a place and time) that is significantly disturbed: Patrick McGrath's masterful SPIDER will astonish you; and Einer Mar Gudmundson's ANGELS OF THE UNIVERSE is very effective as well. CARRYING THE BODY is not quite in the same league as these two - this novel is more focused on emotions than those two - but it's an entertaining, interesting read nonetheless. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: VERY ODD ¿ BUT IN GOOD WAYS¿
Review: ...and that's a complement. The style employed by the author in this short, discomforting novel suits the story - and the characters - perfectly. This is one of those 'finds' that I noticed on the shelf in a bookstore, read the inner flap, and decided to take a chance on it, without first delving into the book itself. The language and syntax might have put me off if I had given the book a quick thumb-through - and that would have been a pity. The story concerns one of the most dysfunctional, disturbed families I've come across - and not in the 'they slaughtered their neighbors and everyone says they were such quiet people' sense. This is a bit of a horror story, but much more subtle and subdued than that. Each member of the family, in their own quiet way, is a bit of a sociopath. The matriarch of the family is long dead; the father sits most of the time in a vegetative state; the oldest daughter (referred to only as 'aunt' in the book) has continued living in the house in order to care for him; the youngest daughter, Elise, has been missing for years, having run away when she was younger, only to return in the 'present' of the novel with a child fathered by an un-named lover. The child is ill - chills, fever, a bloody rash - and Elise doesn't quite seem to know how to care for him. She spends most of her time searching through the house for something mysteriously unidentified. The aunt is beside herself - she feels that she has been put upon for years, left 'holding the bag' in caring for their father and the house in which they live, 'and now this'. The story unfolds in a very choppy manner, depicted perfectly in the author's chosen prose - it realistically reproduces the shattered thought processes of all those involved, as well as the unpredictability of the events. I've come across a couple of other novels over the last few years that have been very successful at putting the reader inside the head of a character (or in this case, a set of characters as well as a place and time) that is significantly disturbed: Patrick McGrath's masterful SPIDER will astonish you; and Einer Mar Gudmundson's ANGELS OF THE UNIVERSE is very effective as well. CARRYING THE BODY is not quite in the same league as these two - this novel is more focused on emotions than those two - but it's an entertaining, interesting read nonetheless. Highly recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: Reminiscent of Pedro Paramo
Review: Dawn Raffel's first novel is a sustained pleasure of everyday objects viewed gravely in percussive, unimpeachable prose. The voice is full of sinister intelligence and hurt. This is the novel the literate have been waiting for.
Rating:
Summary: Unimpeachable prose
Review: Dawn Raffel's first novel is a sustained pleasure of everyday objects viewed gravely in percussive, unimpeachable prose. The voice is full of sinister intelligence and hurt. This is the novel the literate have been waiting for.
Rating:
Summary: Christmas present
Review: Here is something rare and beautiful, a wonderful Christmas present for discerning readers. A reader from New York
Rating: 
Summary: Complete waste of paper
Review: It must be people with a vested interset in seeing this book sell that are giving it good reviews, because there is nothing good about this book.I don't know what bothers me more,the money wasted buying it, or the portion of my life wasted reading it.
Rating:
Summary: A (for Awful)
Review: It was all I could do to finish this book. The writing style was choppy, which others seemed to appreciate, but it drove me crazy. I felt like I was reading a book with my son who is just learning to read. I still have yet to figure out the point of the novel. Maybe this is just not my sort of novel? but judge for yourself.
Rating:
Summary: Imagine if Virginia Woolf Wrote a Page-Turner
Review: It's hard to describe this book other than saying you really need to read it yourself. Most of the time, when I hear people write about a book's "style", I roll my eyes and think "that means it's boring". But this book has an interesting plot -- and you really do want to see how it ends. I'd recommend it highly.
Rating:
Summary: Imagine if Virginia Woolf Wrote a Page-Turner
Review: It's hard to describe this book other than saying you really need to read it yourself. Most of the time, when I hear people write about a book's "style", I roll my eyes and think "that means it's boring". But this book has an interesting plot -- and you really do want to see how it ends. I'd recommend it highly.
Rating:
Summary: Christmas Present
Review: Raffel's speech has oracular power. Her primal declarations are weird and exalting.
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