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Interviews | November 19, 2009

Dave: IMG Finding John Irving: The Powells.com Interview

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johnirving[Editor's note: The following is a reprint of our 2005 interview with John Irving, whose new novel, Last Night in Twisted River, has just come out... Continue »
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    Last Night in Twisted River

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25 Local Warehouse Literature- Coming of Age
25 Remote Warehouse Literature- A to Z
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Normal People Don't Live Like This

by Dylan Landis

Normal People Don't Live Like This Cover

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

At the center of this startling fiction debut is Leah Levinson, a teen at sea in the anonymous ordeals of a middle-class upbringing on the Upper West Side in the 1970s. In ten installments, written from varying perspectives, we witness her uneasy relationships with faster, looser peers-girls she is drawn to but also alienated by. No one, though, alienates Leah more than her mother, Helen. Estranged yet intertwined, they struggle within the confines of their personalities, unaware of how similar their paths are. Just when they seem at a lonely impasse, each makes an impulsive change-Leah taking a risky trip abroad, Helen renting a secret room in a welfare hotel. Jolted from their old patterns, the two of them independently glimpse the possibility of a more hopeful life. Dylan Landis is a gifted portraitist of unforgettable female characters. Normal People Don't Live Like This is a striking debut.

Synopsis:

"Wonderful! Leah and Helen are authentic, vulnerable characters, whose intimate truths are exposed at perfect, unexpected moments."-Elizabeth Strout

Synopsis:

The stories are about the hidden lives of a teenager and her mother, and how they struggle to negotiate old emotional damages and open themselves to love. The girl, Leah, yearns for belonging and worships the most delinquent girls at school, while her mother, Helen, secretly rents a welfare hotel room that she obsessively decorates. The stories- quirky and darkly humorous- are told from different perspectives. In the end they all serve at least in part to illuminate who Leah is and who she may become, but they're also about the sometimes disturbing, sometimes transformative lives of the girls and women she knows.
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Average customer rating based on 1 comment:
Cheryl Klein, November 2, 2009 (view all comments by Cheryl Klein)
I tore through this book in the same manner I devoured Prep--something about my apparent hunger to see an angsty female adolescence given literary weight. Landis shines her considerable literary light on moments and images: for example, the care her bisexual protagonist devotes to touching a pregnant friend's wrist rather than her stomach. It's a book of rooms (the mother character is a designer, so this is both literal and figurative); there's sturdy architecture here, but it's often masked by a beautiful set of curtains. Very occasionally I wanted some of those offstage plot points to get bigger play (what? Leah's dad died? when did that happen?), but mostly I was happy to revel in the details.
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Product Details

ISBN:
9780892553549
Author:
Landis, Dylan
Publisher:
Persea Books
Subject:
General
Subject:
General Fiction
Subject:
Coming of age
Subject:
Contemporary Women
Subject:
New york (n.y.)
Subject:
Teenage girls
Subject:
Classics
Copyright:
2009
Publication Date:
August 2009
Binding:
Hardcover
Grade Level:
General/trade
Language:
English
Pages:
181
Dimensions:
8.16x5.42x.51 in. .50 lbs.
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