Spinners: A Novel - Softcover

McCarten, Anthony

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1846880351 ISBN 13: 9781846880353

Publisher: Alma Books, 2008

Synopsis

Teenage meat-packer Delia Chapman's claim that she has encountered a group of aliens is at first considered temporary insanity because of the stresses of her job. For how else can her story, which gains her instand tabloid fame and the envy of her catty friends, be explained? Things get stranger when Delia realizes she's pregnant, but remembers little more of her supernatural experience than lights and noise. When two of Delia's friends also disclose their pregnancies and likewise blame the spacemen, the town of Opunake begins to buzz with reporters.

About this title

Review

Delia Chapman, the heroine of Anthony McCarten's extraterrestrial black comedy, Spinners, is 16 years old and pregnant--quite possibly by (she says) alien beings who "took her on their vessel. They had silver suits and stainless-steel boots. The vessel was ultra-modern and entirely impressive." The first person Delia tells her story to is the local policeman who finds her wandering on the highway outside the small New Zealand town of Opunake. As the story spreads, theories abound as to why she would make up such a thing. One explanation holds that her job at Borthwick's Freezing Works had unhinged her since "it was known that 80 percent of the town's female population were being taxed to the point of near nervous collapse by the factory's unrelenting regimen." Another faction suggests that Delia, who is known to wear a Lakers NBA basketball cap and a University of North Carolina T-shirt, and to carry a walkman wherever she goes, might simply have taken "the next logical step in her metamorphosis into a Yank" with her wild tale of alien abduction.

Skeptical as the local townspeople are, the discovery of a dead cow in the middle of a crop circle adds credence to Delia's story, and soon little Opunake is at the center of a media blitz. Then Phillip Sullivan, an ex-soldier with a dream of reopening the town library, arrives and falls for our heroine. One by one, secrets are laid bare, mysteries resolved, and nobody's life will be the same again. McCarten, a successful playwright, has woven together a novel that is both very funny and very serious. This is one extraterrestrial story with its feet planted firmly on the ground. --Alix Wilber

From the Back Cover

In this rollicking first novel, a small town is thrown into an uproar when several of its teenage citizens claim to have been impregnated by spacemen. Are they "spinning" tales? A crushed cow found lying in the center of a scorched, perfect circle in a nearby field suggests they're not -- and the rumor mill goes into overdrive with the arrival of Phillip, the new librarian. He falls for Delia and is soon caught up in the irresistible drama of uncovering the town's darkest secrets. What he finds shakes the community far more than a flying saucer ever could.

About this edition

• Publisher: Alma Books
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 1846880351
• ISBN 13: 9781846880353
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 286