The Given World: A Novel - Softcover

Palaia, Marian

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1476778043 ISBN 13: 9781476778044

Verlag: Simon & Schuster, 2016

Inhaltsangabe

“Complex and haunting…vivid and unforgettable” (People), this story of one injured but indefatigable young woman is a stunning portrait of a family, a generation, and a country all coming of age.

From a quiet family farm in Montana in the 60s to the grit and haze of San Francisco in the 70s to a gypsy-populated, post-war Saigon, The Given World spins around its unconventional and unforgettable heroine, Riley. When her big brother is declared MIA in Vietnam, young Riley packs up her shattered heart and leaves her family, her first love, and “a few small things” behind. By trial and error she builds a new life, working on cars, delivering newspapers, tending bar. She befriends, rescues, and is rescued by a similarly vagabond cast of characters whose “‘unraveled souls’ sting hardest and linger the longest” (The New York Times Book Review). Foolhardy, funny, and wise, Riley’s challenge as she grows into a woman is simple: survive long enough to go home again, or at least figure out where home is, and who might be among the living there.

Lorrie Moore said, “It’s been a long time since a first book contained this much wisdom and knowledge of the world.” The Given World is “an immensely rewarding and remarkable debut” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review).

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Marian Palaia was born in Riverside, California, and grew up there and in Washington, DC. She lives in San Francisco and has also lived in Montana, Hong Kong, Ho Chi Minh City, and Nepal, where she was a Peace Corps volunteer. Marian has also been a truck driver, a bartender, and a logger. The Given World is her first novel.

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Given World

1. Hawks

They say our early memories are really memories of what we think we remember—stories we tell ourselves—and as we grow older, we re-remember, and often get it wrong along the way. I’m willing to believe that, but I still trust some of my memories, the most vivid, like this one: there was a newspaper, and a headline, bigger than the everyday ones. It was morning and I was alone at the kitchen table, sleepy, my feet resting on the dog—he was a cow dog, speckled black and white, name of Cash—on the floor underneath. I had a spoon in my hand and was waving it around; drops of milk splashed on the paper.

The headline said, “Johnson Doubles Draft to 35,000.” It was summer and I was nine. I knew who Johnson was. He was the president. He was tall and talked funny, and his nose took up half his face. The reason he got to be president was on account of the last one getting shot in Texas, by Lee Harvey Oswald, who got shot by Jack Ruby, who did not get shot by anyone. JFK was the president when I first started school. John-John and Caroline were his kids and his wife looked like a movie star. When they buried him, she wore a black veil over her face so no one could see if she cried. John-John held her hand.

President Johnson, in the paper, said Vietnam was a different kind of war. I knew I could ask Mick about that: about how many kinds of war there were, or how there could even be different kinds, but he was outside. My parents were out there too—Mom probably in the garden already, digging up potatoes before the sun got so high and hot it would turn them green, and Dad fixing fences or tractoring or scaring up dopey runaway calves. The usual. Our life.

I collected the bowl of apples and the peeler Mom had left on the counter for me and went out to the front porch. I balanced the bowl on the railing and slid my feet between two spindles to stand on the bottom rail, so I could lean over and get a better look at my brother. Mick was crouched in the driveway next to a black Triumph motorcycle, his high school graduation present to himself. He was hoping to catch a girl with it, I knew, or to go away on it, or both. I was not in favor of either, but he was over the moon. The bike was magnificent.

His toolbox lay open in the dust, and a greasy rag dangled like a cockeyed tail from the back pocket of his coveralls. Most of his blond hair was tucked up under a train engineer’s cap, but a few wayward strands crept down his neck and caught the poplar-filtered morning light like filaments of some shiny spun metal. No one else in the family had hair like that. Not even close. I thought about sneaking up behind him with a pair of scissors and snipping off a piece, but it seemed like a lot of work and probably not worth the repercussions. Instead, I looked around for something small to throw at him, as it was my habit to be annoying. I did know better than to hit him with an entire apple.

Without looking at me, he said, “Don’t even think about it,” and gave one of the screws on the engine an infinitesimal turn.

“I wasn’t thinking about anything,” I said. I was still searching, but there was nothing. I’m sure I sighed. I was a great sigher in those days. I picked up the bowl and sat down with my back to the wall, scissored my legs open, and set the bowl between them. The peeler was still on the porch railing.

“Crap.”

“What’s wrong? Can’t find a weapon?”

“I left the peeler. It’s on the rail.”

“Bummer.”

“Get it for me?”

“Nope.”

“Thanks.”

“My pleasure, Cupcake.”

I didn’t move. I sniffed the air and it smelled like cow farts. I said so.

Mick said, “What smells like cow farts?”

“The world.”

“Probably not,” he said. “Probably just Montana.”

“Oh.” I pondered my entire range of geographic and zoologic knowledge, not coming up with a whole lot. “So, does that mean Africa smells like hippo farts?”

“I doubt it. Hippos fart underwater.”

“So what other animals are there?”

“Anywhere? Or just in Africa?”

“There. In Africa.”

“You have an encyclopedia, Riley. Why don’t you look it up?”

“I have to peel these.” I took an apple out of the bowl and balanced it on the top of my head. “Plus, it wouldn’t hurt you to just tell me.”

I heard him sigh. I think he must have taught me how. “All right. Then will you be quiet?” No promises. I made a noise, like hrrmm.

He pulled the rag out of his pocket, dipped it in a tin of rubbing compound, and began to buff a tiny scratch on the gas tank. “Elephants. Don’t even tell me if you didn’t know that already. Antelope, zebras, giraffes, wildebeests, warthogs . . .”

“Warthogs?” I sat up straighter. “You made that up.”

“No,” he said, “I did not.”

I tilted my head forward to drop the apple into my hand, put it back in the bowl, and slitted my eyes like a snake. I considered my options. My tendency to doubt was well earned, but I still believed most of what Mick said, unless the bullshit was totally obvious. He was ridiculously smart. He read tons of books and remembered what was in them. Not like some people.

“What do they look like?” I said, still not sure which way this was going to go.

“Like bristly little pigs. Their tails stand straight up.”

I was eyeing the peeler, and even went so far as to set the bowl next to me so I could get up to retrieve it.

“What else?”

Mick said, “I’ll draw you a picture later.”

“When later?”

“After now.”

We were almost done. I could tell.

“Where do these guys live?”

“At the beach.”

“The ocean?” To me, the ocean was the most magical place in the world, even though I’d never seen one, never been farther outside Montana than the North Dakota Badlands. But even the Badlands had once been underwater, or so I’d been told.

“Yes. At the beach at the ocean. Where beaches are.” Mick popped off the spark plug wire, reached into his toolbox for the ratchet, and loosened the plug. The noise the ratchet made was a bit cricket-like. I wondered if I could tie that in somehow to make the conversation go further. Gave up.

Mick looked over his shoulder at me. I wasn’t moving. I could have been dead. “Are you going to peel those apples or what?”

“What,” I said, but that was it. I knew it was going to be.

I got the peeler and began skinning apples, imagining for a short time they were small rabbits and me a wily trapper collecting pelts, but it didn’t make me feel very good; it made me feel a little sick, in fact, so I tried to take it back, in my head, but couldn’t. By the time I finished, Mick had disappeared into the garage. I took the apples inside and set them on the counter. “Here are your rabbits,” I said—whispered—to no one.

I whistled Cash from his refuge under the table, and together we padded the two flights up to my room, which had once been the attic. It was small, because the whole house wasn’t very big—just a tallish box, perfectly square with the...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Simon & Schuster
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2016
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1476778043
• ISBN 13: 9781476778044
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 320
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar