author of we are all completely beside ourselves

Then, something happened, and Rosemary wrapped herself in silence. But until Fern’s expulsion.she was my twin, my funhouse mirror, my whirlwind other half and I loved her as a sister.” As a child, Rosemary never stopped talking. “I tell you Fern was a chimp and already you aren’t thinking of her as my sister. “I was raised with a chimpanzee,” she explains. Meet the Cooke family: Mother and Dad, brother Lowell, sister Fern, and Rosemary, who begins her story in the middle. It is beautifully written, different, believable and keeps you engaged throughout.The New York Times bestselling author of The Jane Austen Book Club introduces a middle-class American family that is ordinary in every way but one in this novel that won the PEN/Faulkner Award and was a finalist for the Man Booker Prize. (As people who know me in real life will attest – such self restraint is amazing!!) The friend who recommended it had been told by her mother about what this twist was – and she thinks therefore made the book less enjoyable for her – hence me not revealing it. Twice.”īasically – there is a massive important factor to this book 25% in (can you tell I read it on my Kindle – otherwise it would have been ‘about a quarter of the way through’!) and not giving this away I think is fundamental to the book. So now she’s telling her story a looping narrative that begins towards the end, and then goes back to the beginning. But there’s something unique about Rosemary’s sister, Fern. Both are now gone – vanished from her life.

Rosemary is now an only child, but she used to have a sister the same age as her, and an older brother. So we’re not going to tell you too much either: you’ll have to find out for yourself what it is that makes her unhappy family unlike any other. And she definitely doesn’t talk about her family. Now Rosemary has just started college and she barely talks at all.

So much so that her parents used to tell her to start in the middle if she wanted to tell a story.

“As a child, Rosemary used to talk all the time. It was also nominated for the Man Booker Prize, and the blurb on there is slightly longer: Big, life-defining choices.”Īlthough there are lots of Amazon reviews praising this beneath the blurb. “By the author of worldwide bestseller The Jane Austen Book Club: you can’t choose your family, but they can make choices for you. Again – this is a recommendation from a friend (I love that I have so many book loving – I’m not going to put geeky, because we’re far too cool for that, but actually we are – friends!)

Author of we are all completely beside ourselves