Requests and Dedications - Softcover

Levine, Elise

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0771052774 ISBN 13: 9780771052774

Verlag: McClelland & Stewart, 2003

Inhaltsangabe

Set in the hip urban core of Toronto and in the city’s outlying areas, this is the story of an unlikely family – held together by love and longing, pain and regret – and what happens when the ties that bind them begin to unravel. There is Walker, a tender but rough-edged horse dealer trying to do the right thing; his fading lounge-singer girlfriend, Mimi; his sister, Joy, who cleans at the golf club nearby; and Joy’s teenage daughter, Tanis, self-sufficient, nervy, wise, locked in conflict with her mother, and ready to break away from the tangle of this makeshift family – and does, until a tragic event changes everything. Gritty, seductive, infused with wit and an undercover poignancy, this is an audacious and emotionally compelling novel by a writer who knows exactly where the heart lives and why it’s sometimes so hard to find it.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Elise Levine is the highly acclaimed author of a collection of stories, Driving Men Mad, and the novel Requests and Dedications. Her fiction has appeared in The Journey Prize Anthology, Coming Attractions, and Concrete Forest. A Canadian from Toronto, Levine is currently living in Chicago, where her husband, a composer, is finishing a Ph.D.

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“Reading Elise Levine is akin to a wild ride down a dark road at night.…Bold and startling.…Precipitous and exhilarating.”
–Globe and Mail

“Levine demonstrates a kind of incandescent knowing about human affairs which she deploys in stunningly nuanced passages.…Levine proves herself a sensitive, cagey dominatrix of literary form and human psychology.”
–George Elliott Clarke, Mail Star

“Reading Elise Levine is like flying downhill on a bicycle…you’re caught up in the rush with a smile on your face. …A dazzling wordsmith, a lexical tease, Levine is like a kid let loose in a leaf pile, kicking up words for the sheer joy of watching them spin.”
–Toronto Star

“A cutting-edge literary sensation.”
–NOW Magazine

“Audacious.…”
–Toronto Star

“Elise Levine’s writing compresses the distance between art and audience.…Her fiction renders event indistinguishable from emotion, affecting the gut as fully as the mind.…The tension that Levine’s writing evokes remains unresolved, extending beyond the page of her fictions.”
–Ottawa Citizen

“Levine’s writing is adventurous and brave.…”
–Quill & Quire

“Levine’s vivid language and unflinching exploration of people living on the edge of society will stay with you long after each story is read.…”
–St. John’s Evening Telegram

“Content and form fly apart to create a new kind of presentation and fictional reality.…No reader can make his or her way through these stories and retain any kind of complacency.”
–Calgary Herald

“Elise Levine uses language as a dare – tough, intense, almost defensive; ironically, it only heightens the effect of her compassion, which pierces the narrative with equal immediacy. From this edginess her vivid characters – who, in various states of ruin and repair, struggle towards a sense of family – emerge as authentic as bone.”
–Anne Michaels

“An accomplished first novel.… [Levine is] poised for another literary success.… Requests and Dedications is a worthy successor to Levine’s impressive premiere.… Levine uses language deftly.… Levine skilfully creates a sense of place.…”
–Eye Weekly

Aus dem Klappentext

An audacious first novel by a ?white hot? new writer

When Elise Levine?s short story collection, Driving Men Mad, was published, it caused a real stir. Now in this brilliant first novel she fulfils all the promise and then some.

Requests and Dedications is set in the hip urban core of Toronto and in the city?s outlying areas, where the countryside?s working poor encounter the middle class in their monster homes. The story centres around a young woman, Tanis; her rough-edged horse-dealer uncle, Walker; Tanis?s mother, Joy; and Walker?s girlfriend, Mimi, a singer. Walker, an outsider, lives behind a veneer of toughness, belying his generous heart, and he is caught in the maelstrom of glamorous Mimi, who knows just how to use her charms to seduce all those around her. Then there is Tanis, self-sufficient, wise, irreverent. Gripped in her tearing relationship with her mother, and by her uneasy love of Walker, she is at the same time ready to break away from the tangle of this makeshift family, and does, until a tragic event changes everything.

Gritty, raw, infused with a sparkling wit and an undercover poignancy, Requests and Dedications is a remarkable debut novel by a writer who knows exactly where the heart lives and why it?s so hard sometimes to find it. Levine?s characters, as they seek to transcend their constricted lives, are achingly human and unforgettable.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

First came the merry-­go-­round, smeary yellow on a damp afternoon, then a parade in which the morning sunshine spun a filigree of golden horses. Memories like sno-­cones, jewel-­toned cups of flavoured ice. A tall bunny in a tuxedo and top hat, a miracle carrot-­peeler. A woman in a floral-­print dress with full pleated skirt leaning over from the waist, head floating above in an aureole of pink cotton candy, the warmth of sugared breath. And once, at a schoolyard fair, a ride on a pony called Pickles. Look mom — no hands!

Now, on this November afternoon, my thirty-­seven-­year-­old arms deliciously overburdened with stuffed animals, tin belt buckles, plastic lampshades — having stormed the kiosks, driven by a nearly boundless love of sour-­cream fudge and guaranteed never-­to-­chip fingernail polish — it’s still me all right, the queen of par-­tay. No point making sense. You live your life and that’s that. It’s a credo that’s got me this far — I’ve only just begun to realize the good times ­can’t last forever.

What the?

Walker refuses to notice me, and my practised sneer goes to waste. Instead he keeps whistling, pursing his thin wormy lips, gazing into the rafters and down at the hay-­wisped concrete floor. He checks over his fleshy shoulders once or twice then shrugs, shaking his head as if to say, What can you do? His whistle is high and soft, a wooing sigh with little rolls and flutters, notes ascending then curling over the top like tiny waves, the scrolled song folding over on itself like the folds of his own decadently wrinkled skin. The horse beside him pays scant attention, flicking its bony head up and down, tapping the ground with its front hooves in boredom.

Must be losing it, Walker, the horse’s groom says.

Sitting on an overturned steel bucket next to the horse’s rump, he’s a gnomish man, short and wiry with an oversized head and an off-­centre mouth, a sneaky, ventriloquist’s voice. Impossible to guess his age. He raises his buggy eyebrows and winks at me, leering. I smile icily, just in case, though Walker ­doesn’t seem to notice.

The horse stiffens and spreads its back legs. When the pee comes Walker holds his hands palm out and looks upward. The groom scrambles forward onto his knees, upends his makeshift perch, rocks back onto his heels.

Crouching low to aim the bucket, he grudgingly shakes his head and squeaks, Still the best, my man.

Then off he trundles, taking the sample to the makeshift veterinarian’s office where it will be tested for illegal substances.

My guy — the official whistler at the Royal Winter Fair. He stands with his arms crossed over his massive belly, not quite looking at me.

Want something? he says.

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: McClelland & Stewart
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2003
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0771052774
• ISBN 13: 9780771052774
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 328
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar