Minus Time: A Novel - Hardcover

Bush, Catherine

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1562828819 ISBN 13: 9781562828813

Publisher: Hyperion, 1993

Synopsis

As a member of the twenty-something generation in the 1990s, Helen finds the threat of environmental disaster, chemical fires, and contaminated water connected to the collapse of her family's personal relationships.

About this title

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.

About this edition

• Publisher: Hyperion
• Publication date: 1993
• ISBN 10: 1562828819
• ISBN 13: 9781562828813
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 342