Minus Time - Softcover

Bush, Catherine

3.52

83 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0006485294 ISBN 13: 9780006485292

Publisher: Phyllis Bruce Books Perennial, 2000

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Widely praised by critics in Canada and the U.S., shortlisted for the 1994 SmithBooks/Books in Canada First Novel Award and a City of Toronto Book Award, Minus Time made a stunningly successful publishing debut. Now with the February 2000 release of Catherine Bush’s second novel, The Rules of Engagement (see page 9), and interest from the film community, this is the perfect time for the new PerennialCanada edition of Minus Time.

With surreal lyricism and edgy, deadpan wit, Catherine Bush’s Minus Time traces the desire of a young woman to make a place for herself in a media-mad, toxic-scare-filled world. Helen’s mother is an astronaut trying to set an endurance record in a space station. Her father, a disaster-relief specialist, circles the world saving people from catastrophe. What kind of family is possible when your parents are in constant motion and there’s so much space separating you from them? With risks of disaster all around, how do you dream a future for yourself?

Set in a world where external events aptly mirror the drama of personal relationships, Minus Time offers up a brilliantly observed, deeply moving tale of millennial life, in a voice sliced through with irony and awe.

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About the Author:

CATHERINE BUSH is the author of the novel Minus Time, which was shortlisted for the 1994 SmithBooks/Books in Canada First Novel Award and a City of Toronto Book Award and published internationally. It is currently being adapted for the big screen. Born in Toronto, Bush has also resided in Montreal, New York and Provincetown, Massachusetts, and has a degree in Comparative Literature from Yale University. She now lives in Toronto.

From Kirkus Reviews:

Patchy yet captivating first novel about familial fractures- -with an unusual conceit. The conceit is that heroine Helen Urie, 20, is separated from her mother not only by emotional distance but by an unprecedented physical gap--because Canadian astronaut Barbara Urie is orbiting the Earth as half of a male-female team aiming to set a record for in-space habitation. The story opens with Helen and her brother, Paul, watching from a deliberate distance as Barbara rockets into orbit--``and in that instant, everything...changed,'' including the validity of perception: That night, the two gaze in disbelief as a TV replay shows their doubles at the launch's viewing stand--``a backup family'' supplied by a media-minded NASA for the no-show siblings who chose to watch from afar. Also backed-up is their dad, David, whom they haven't seen since he lit out years before to provide earthquake relief when the ``Big One'' hit L.A. (one of several ecodisasters that backdrop the plot). Author Bush pushes the sense of dislocation by alternating first- and third-person narration as Helen returns to hometown Toronto and takes an anonymous job waitressing. She also joins an animal-rights group, which leads to her unmasking when she's arrested for civil disobedience. But that act of defiance begins a transformative dialogue between Helen and Barbara (via telephone and closed- circuit TV), and--after Barbara is forced to make a fateful decision about staying in orbit--the entire family has a chance to start anew.... A slightly surreal collage of often remarkable images and sensitively drawn characters that doesn't quite cohere--but that Bush is a talent to watch is without doubt. -- Copyright �1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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