Synopses & Reviews
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.
Review
"A fine prose stylist shows her chops in this reissue....So disguised and understated is Adamson's brand of humor, however, that it will take readers who are particularly sensitive to nuances of tone and language to appreciate it fully." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"Adamson's vivid characters are zany without being cartoonish. Perfect for readers looking for books similar to Mark Haddon's A Spot of Bother or Dodie Smith's I Capture the Castle." Library Journal
Synopsis
Before The Outlander, multiple-award-winning, bestselling, and critically acclaimed author Adamson published another book of fiction. With this new updated edition, Adamson's fascinating portrait of a young woman's coming of age is ready for readers once again.
About the Author
The offspring of a family that has been in Canada for eight generations, Gil Adamson was the first baby born in North York, Ontario in 1961, an accident of birth which might partly explain her wary and perceptive take on the hidden eccentricities of suburban life. On graduation in 1985, she joined Coach House Press as publicist and editorial assistant, and in 1987 became publishing assistant at CBC Radio Guide.