Falling Angels - Hardcover

Barbara Gowdy

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0747507082 ISBN 13: 9780747507086

Publisher: Bloomsbury, 1991

Synopsis

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--

About this title

About the Author

Barbara Gowdy is the author of seven books, including Helpless, The Romantic, The White Bone, Mister Sandman, We So Seldom Look on Love and Falling Angels, all of which have been met with widespread international acclaim and critical praise. She has been a finalist three times for the Governor General’s Award and the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, twice for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, and has been long-listed for the Booker Prize. In 1996 she received the Marian Engel Award, and in 2008 the Trillium Book Award. Barbara Gowdy is a Member of the Order of Canada and a Guggenheim Fellow. She lives in Toronto.

From Library Journal

Disenchanted eccentrics wending their way through eerie situations seem to be the dominant theme in most of the postmodern "new fiction." Troublesome as these forays into nihilism's gloomy landscapes are, an effective work of new fiction is as bracing as a dive into a chilly pond, offering more than a few surprises with its odd meld of quirky characters and wickedly audacious scenes. Gowdy's is one such dark gem of a novel. Through a series of vignettes it charts the lives of the Field family, recounting bouts of alcoholism, neglect, and verbal abuse. A story otherwise laden with sad escapades, Fallen Angels remains lively throughout because of the inventiveness and strength of its main characters: Lou, Norma, and Sandy. These three unfortunate sisters will amaze readers with their ability to endure the many traumas of childhood and adolescence, despite the antics of their even more unfortunate parents. This coming-of-age novel is not likely to appeal to those who wear a shield of optimism.
-Lauren Bielski,"Printing News"
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Bloomsbury
• Publication date: 1991
• ISBN 10: 0747507082
• ISBN 13: 9780747507086
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1