Barbara Gowdy Libri

Se gli elefanti potessero raccontare una storia, sceglierebbero senz'altro quella di Mota, una giovane femmina d'elefante con il dono della preveggenza rimasta orfana alla nascita. Gli elefanti protagonisti di questa storia lottano per la sopravvivenza del branco e della specie guidati tanto da un olfatto straordinario quanto da visioni, ricordi e allucinazioni e il viaggio che intraprendono diviene un'odissea che mette alla prova la loro capacità di resistenza, il loro spirito di sacrificio.

The three Field sisters live in the sanitized suburbs of the fifties and sixties, but their plastic world is askew. They are growing up crazy in a very eccentric, often miserable, sometimes hilarious family. Their home is a war zone ruled by an abusive father - a philandering used-car salesman hooked on booze, guns and discipline. And whenever their mother's coffee mug is empty they hurry to refill it with whiskey, for they know she's living precariously in the wake of the strange unspeakable act she once committed against the family.These falling angels - tough-talking Lou; sensible, sentimental Norma; chic, naïve Sandy - go through rites of passage each in her own way. They turn to drugs, swinging sixties sex, schmaltzy fantasy - and, repeatedly, to one another. And, even after her death, they turn to their mother, and to the bizarre love they discover their father bore her, a love he must commemorate at Niagara Falls—

From the internationally acclaimed author of The White Bone and The Romantic comes a haunting and suspenseful tale of abduction and obsessive love. Nine-year-old Rachel Fox possesses an angelic beauty that captivates everyone she encounters. Her single mother, Celia, juggles her time between a video store and a piano bar, often leaving Rachel vulnerable to both benign and sinister attention, including from model agencies and Ron, a repairman fixated on seeing Rachel again. When a summer blackout envelops the city in darkness, Rachel is abducted from her home, prompting a frantic search. Days pass with no solid leads, only a mysterious phone call from a woman whose voice Celia recognizes but cannot place. As Celia grapples with her terror, Rachel begins to trust her captor’s seemingly kind demeanor. The only other person aware of Rachel's whereabouts finds themselves torn between loyalty to the abductor and the desire to save the child. Will Rachel be rescued before her captor's protective instincts morph into something far more sinister? This narrative delves into the underlying fears of urban life, as the author employs her signature empathy and precision to explore the complexities of love and the precarious line between desire and the unthinkable.

Barbara Gowdy's outrageous, hilarious, disturbing, and compassionate novel is about the Canary family, their immoderate passions and eccentricities, and their secret lives and histories. The deepest secret of all is harbored in the silence of the youngest daughter, Joan, who doesn't grow, who doesn't speak, but who can play the piano like Mozart though she's never had a lesson. Joan is a mystery, and in the novel's stunning climax her family comes to understand that each of them is a mystery, as marvelous as Joan, as irreducible as the mystery of life itself. In its compassionate investigation of moral truths and its bold embrace of the fractured nature of every one of its characters, Mister Sandman attains the heightened quality of a modern-day parable.

In this witty novel, award-winning Canadian writer Barbara Gowdy explores romance and the complexities of love through a narrative that delves into the nature of loving someone on the brink of oblivion.

Lakonische, präzise und zärtliche Erzählungen von ungewöhnlichen und faszinierenden Menschen, die von Geburt an anders sind, Berichte aus einer Welt, die trotz ihrer scheinbaren Fremdheit doch seltsam vertraut ist. Die dunkle Schönheit dieser Geschichten trifft mitten ins Herz. Mit diesem Buch gelang Barbara Gowdy in England der Durchbruch. „Das grenzt an literarische Hexerei.“ SÜDDEUTSCHE ZEITUNG

Ein Gewitter nach dem anderen zieht sich in diesem heißen Sommer am Himmel zusammen und immer, wenn es ausbricht, verliert Rose Bowan das Bewusstsein und hat intensive, vollkommen realistische Träume, in denen sie im Körper einer anderen Frau ist. Sind das nur Träume? Oder »bewohnt« sie tatsächlich eine Fremde? Was geschieht ihr? So verstört wie fasziniert fängt sie an zu recherchieren, verlässt den Kokon des kleinen Programmkinos ihrer Familie und taucht in das aufgewühlte Leben von jemandem ein, der ganz anders ist als sie. Gleichzeitig erkrankt ihre Mutter an Demenz und fängt an – zum ersten Mal seit Jahrzehnten –, über eine andere gespenstische Präsenz zu sprechen: über Roses kleine Schwester. In Kleine Schwester erkundet Barbara Gowdy die erstaunliche Macht der Empathie, die Frage, wo wir aufhören und die anderen anfangen, und erzählt mit großer Eindringlichkeit von den tiefen familiären Bindungen, die uns prägen – ob wir wollen oder nicht.