Help Me, Jacques Cousteau - Softcover

Adamson, Gil

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0887847994 ISBN 13: 9780887847998

Publisher: House of Anansi Press, 2010

Synopsis

With her multiple-award-winning, bestselling, and critically acclaimed novel The Outlander, Gil Adamson established herself as one of North America's preeminent fiction writers. But ten years before The Outlander Adamson published another book of fiction with a small press, and writers, readers, and critics immediately sat up and took note. With this new updated edition, Adamson’s fascinating portrait of a young woman’s coming of age is ready for readers once again. Help Me, Jacques Cousteau presents the life and times of Hazel, who is born into an extraordinary family alongside her brother Andrew. Hazel’s experiences, at once odd and completely believable, involve a diverse cast of family members who share only one thing: a penchant for eccentric behavior. In portraying a strange, compelling, dysfunctional family, Adamson demonstrates her powerful prose style, uniquely combining a scientist’s loving attention to detail, a comic’s unerring delivery, and a poet’s sublime ear.

About this title

About the Author:

Gil Adamson cites as her influences Michael Ondaatje, Raymond Carver, Richard Ford, and Mark Richard. Her acclaimed short fiction has been widely published in magazines and literary journals, and her collection of stories received rave reviews. The Outlander, ten years in the writing, was her first novel and has been published in many editions around the world. Adamson lives in Toronto, Canada.

From School Library Journal:

Grade 9 Up Hazel and her brother, Andrew, belong to a family of eccentrics. Their dad, North, is constantly rewiring the house and studying the weather. Their mother just up and leaves them one day. One uncle collects only white animals, while another is constantly changing girlfriends. The rest of the family shows up on a whim from time to time, and even the neighbors, whom Hazel enjoys spying on, are a little odd. As Hazel narrates her life beginning from a young age, following the birth of her brother, her adolescence, and her young adulthood, readers get to know the quirky characters who make up her world. With subtle humor and lyrical, at times almost poetic, writing (We hurry along the road in the snow, looking like an assortment of bonbons in frilly wrappings), Adamson weaves a story that will give readers comfort in knowing their families aren't the only ones with their fair share of kookiness. Gina Bowling, South Gibson County High School, Medina, TN
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About this edition

• Publisher: House of Anansi Press
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0887847994
• ISBN 13: 9780887847998
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 197