Meet Me in the In-Between - Softcover

Pollen, Bella

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1509828982 ISBN 13: 9781509828982

Publisher: Picador, 2018

Synopsis

A provocative and lively memoir in stories by the bestselling, "Richard and Judy" selected author of The Summer of the Bear Growing up the middle child of transatlantic parents -- her down- to-earth mother and romantic father -- Bella Pollen never quite figured out how to belong. Restlessly crossing back and forth between the boundaries of family and freedom, England and America, home and away, she has sought but generally failed to contain an adventurous spirit within the confines of conventional living.

When she awakes one morning stymied by an existential panic, Pollen grudgingly concludes that in order to move forward, she needs to take a good look at her past. In 'Meet Me in the In-Between', Pollen takes us on the illuminating journey of a life, from her privileged, unorthodox childhood in Upper Manhattan through early marriage to a son of an alluring Mafioso, to the dusty border towns of Mexico where she falls in with a crowd of Pink Floyd-loving smugglers. Throughout it all, Bella grapples intently with relationships, motherhood, career ups and downs, and a pathological fear of being boxed in.

Interwoven with exquisite passages of graphic memoir, this is a tender, funny, and deeply honest story of one woman's quest to keep looking for the extraordinary in an ordinary life. With a patented mix of humor and pain, novelist Bella Pollen takes a dead-on look at what it means to be a smart, reasonably sane woman navigating the modern world.

About this title

About the Author

Bella Pollen is a writer and journalist who has contributed to a wide variety of publications, including the Sunday Telegraph, American Vogue and the Observer. She is the author of five novels, All About Men, Daydream Girl, Hunting Unicorns, Midnight Cactus and The Summer of the Bear and her illustrated memoir Meet Me in the In-Between. She lives in Ladbroke Grove, London.

Review

Thank god this brilliant writer has had such a brilliant life * Ruby Wax * A contemporary memoir should be honest, entertaining and bursting with life. Bella Pollen's Meet Me in the In-Between is all of this, and more: a work of art. * Robert McCrum * Pollen has a way with caustic description that evinces a love for the evocative qualities of language . . . From the beginning (she) revels in a self-absorption that should be off-putting, but her clever way with words is so self -deprecating that she is immediately likeable * Santa Fe New Mexican * Funny, startling and unexpectedly poignant * The New Statesman * A whimsical and at times very funny style. Pollen has a real talent for recreating scenes, characters and dialogue * Nudge * A rollicking memoir of the novelist's double life and her demons * Women's Wear Daily USA * Meet Me in the In-Between displays the disjointedness of a life, how whims and flings don't make existence-or a woman-any less meaningful. It's in the spaces among all these things that something magical breathes and resists capture. As Pollen illustrates in her sharp, nearly wry voice, it is not our memories that will lead us to an understanding of the self, but the act of maneuvering among them * The San Francisco Journal of Arts and Letter * Brava . . . Pollen's account of bohemian family life and outrageous mafia-in-laws is funny, poignant and acute * The Spectator * Meet me in the In-between is as off-beat as its author, blending memoir with beguiling and graphic novelistic interludes . . . A journey that buzzes and sparks with life and wit * The Lady * Captivating * Tatler * Pollen is an engagingly contradictory tangle . . . but it's her propulsive push-pull relationship with home that's sure to resonate especially sharply with women . . . Poignant, beautifully written, an idiosyncratic memoir * Mail on Sunday * Funny, risky, racy, stunningly visual, and beyond poignant, Bella Pollen's offbeat memoir is a one-of-a-kind adventure start to finish. * Jenny McPhee, author of `The Centre of Things' and 'A Man of No Moon' * How to know who you truly are and what you can become? With nothing firmly underfoot, Pollen pursues a quest for authenticity through unconventional and unpredictable encounters and thrives. Hers is a memoir of an indelible life full of incredible adventures. * Booklist * Frequently disturbing, often very funny. Pollen has a gift for playing with her readers, teasing them, shocking them, having fun with their assumptions before shaking them out of their complacency to reveal underlying and often very moving profundities. The intimacy of Pollen's prose invites inclusion into the most private conversations she has with herself, her self-mocking humour rippling through . . . unforgettable. * Daily Telegraph * Pollen captivatingly mixes graphics with prose to tell of her upbringing, swinging back and forth between binaries (transatlantic homes, riches-to-rags love affairs). Think Eat, Pray, Love - finding yourself, laughing, and taking what you need even when it's not what you wanted - only cooler * Marie Claire * A writer you need to read -- A. A. Gill Bella Pollen creates magic * Vanity Fair *

Edition details

• Publisher: Picador
• Publication date: 2018
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1509828982
• ISBN 13: 9781509828982
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 321