Elizabeth McCracken

A book that is curiously hard to describe or pigeon hole. The author - American - is playing the tourist in London, re-exploring the haunts she and her recently deceased mother enjoyed together. She moves seamlessly, but never inappropriately between her London adventures, her mother's life as a woman with life-affecting health issues, and the need to sell the unwieldy and neglected house that was her parents' last home. Her father also died not too long ago, but he plays no more than a bit part in this story.

Mc Cracken's mother was wilful and opinionated, witty and optimistic - and great fun, despite her very real mobility difficulties. McCracken herself vacillates between protecting her mother's privacy and wanting to cherish her memories. She wants to write a book that's like 'David Copperfield except Jewish, and disabled, and female, and an American wiseacre, but there’s too much I don’t know and I can’t bear to make up.'

This is a funny, unsentimental and vivid book which is impossible to characterise - or to put down.… (más)