Book
The history of great things : a novel / Elizabeth Crane.
Record details
- ISBN: 9780062412676
- ISBN: 0062412671
- Physical Description: 262, 15 pages : illustrations ; 21 cm
- Edition: First edition.
- Publisher: New York : Harper Perennial, [2016]
- Copyright: 2016
Content descriptions
| General Note: | Includes P.S. insights, interviews & more (15 pages). |
Search for related items by subject
| Subject: | Mothers and daughters > Fiction. Women > Fiction. Singers > Fiction. Authors > Fiction. Family secrets > Fiction. |
| Genre: | Chick lit. |
Available copies
- 2 of 2 copies available at BC Interlibrary Connect. (Show)
- 1 of 1 copy available at Hudson's Hope Public Library.
Holds
- 0 current holds with 2 total copies.
| Location | Call Number / Copy Notes | Barcode | Shelving Location | Holdable? | Status | Due Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hudson's Hope Public Library | FIC FIC CRA (Text) | BHH044080 | Adult Fiction | Volume hold | Available | - |
- Booklist Reviews : Booklist Reviews 2016 March #2
*Starred Review* There are two stories in Crane's (We Only Know So Much, 2012) unusual novel: the life of Betsy Crane as her long-deceased mother, Lois, might have imagined it, and the life of Lois as Betsy invents it. Snapshot chapters alternate between these viewpoints, and thus Crane tells two women's life stories not as they were or are but as they could have been. Mother and daughter, in most cases, relay scenes they didn't witness, and the hitch is, of course, that author Crane, not exactly the Betsy we see on the page but not exactly not her either, is writing both. It sounds complicated, but the novel flows smoothly, and readers game for offbeat narrative approaches will be well rewarded. For instance, Betsy, as her mother, tells the story of adult Betsy, who fulfilled her childhood dream of starring in musicals. And Betsy-as-Lois gets to explain, sympathetically, the operatic career that consumed her mother, often to her family's detriment. Some story lines even dip into the fantastically impossible, and why not? So much like the relationship they're borne of, Crane's deeply realized mother-daughter inventions are therapeutic and ruthless, heartfelt and crushing. A lovely exercise in the wild, soothing wonders of imagination. Copyright 2014 Booklist Reviews. - Kirkus Reviews : Kirkus Reviews 2016 February #1
In a series of autobiographically inspired vignettes, a novelist reimagines her mother's life and revisits her own. Most chapters of Crane's fifth book (When The Messenger Is Hot, 2012, etc.) include sidebars in which narrator Betsy Crane (the author's name) and her mom, opera singer Lois Crane (also real), debate the finer points of the project they have undertaken: telling the story of each other's lives as best they can. "I think we should have more scenes together," says Lois. "I've written some short stories about us before. I also might write a memoir someday. I didn't want to overlap too much," counters Betsy. "Some people might think this is a memoir," her mother points out. While it's definitely a novel, since both the real Lois Crane and the mother in the book are dead, the story bears a complicated relationship to nonfictional truth. Sometimes the two narrators seem to adhere closely to the facts, as in the first chapter, "Binghamton, 1961," in which Lois tells the story of her daughter's birth. Sometimes there are embellishments, filling in the blanks of the things mothers and daughter don't know about each other, as in "To New Friends," where Lois tells the story of how Betsy lost her virginity, or "The Rest of Your Life," where Lois tells how Betsy got sober in AA, or several chapters called "Lois Dies," where Lois tries to imagine her daughter's life after she disappears from it. Sometimes the stories contain significant fantasy elements, as in "Betsy's Wedding #2," in which Betsy imagines Lois returned from the dead as one of the guests at a wedding she did not live to see, causing bitterness among the guests whose dead parents did not similarly reincarnate. In a section called "In Which We Go To Parsons Because It's Not A Memoir," the two are sisters, trying unsuccessfully to become clothing designers. In the commentary for this chapter, her mother says, "I don't understand, why, Betsy, if you're making all this up, it all has t o be so hard." Her mother is right: one wishes this endearing stylist, reminiscent of Elizabeth Gilbert, would have done it the easy way. A memoir would have been just fine. Copyright Kirkus 2016 Kirkus/BPI Communications. All rights reserved. - Library Journal Reviews : LJ Reviews 2016 March #2
Imagine sitting at a leisurely dinner with two intelligent women, a mother and daughter. They tell you the story of their lives, but with a twist: Mom will relate her daughter's story, and daughter will describe her mother's. The ensuing conversation is filled with stops and starts, conjectures, interruptions, and contradictions. Essentially, this discussion is one that Crane, short story writer (When the Messenger Is Hot; All This Heavenly Glory) and novelist (We Only Know So Much), has committed to paper for readers. Mom Lois was a world-renowned opera star and daughter Betsy took her time to realize her eventual goal of becoming a writer. Along the way, each woman expresses regrets, defends or affirms her decisions, and ultimately proves that for all their differences and miscommunication, these two understand each other better than they think. VERDICT The format may be experimental, but the emotions the book will stir in readers are moving and heartbreakingly familiar.âAmy Watts, Univ. of Georgia Lib., Athens
[Page 99]. (c) Copyright 2016 Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. - Publishers Weekly Reviews : PW Reviews 2016 February #2
A mother and daughter narrate each other's life stories in Crane's ambitious, quasi-autobiographical novel. When Lois Crane leaves her husband to pursue a career as an opera singer, dragging her young daughter, Betsy, to New York City, it's the beginning of a mother-daughter relationship that only becomes more strained and complicated over the years. In an attempt to bond as adults, Lois and Betsy sit down together, each one telling the other's life story from birth to the present, embellishing and editorializing where necessary. Betsy describes Lois as a young child, then as a young woman going through college and motherhood, moving to New York, falling in love for the second time, and finding some nominal success as a singer. In Lois's account, Betsy stumbles through some fairly rote rites of passage, then falls into aimlessness and alcoholism as an adult, before sobering up and finding her calling as a writer. Peppered with touching moments in which the women find unexpected common ground, as well as hilariously snarky asides between Betsy and Lois at the end of each chapter, the mother-daughter dynamic feels genuine. However, the gimmick of an author named Elizabeth Crane writing about a character named Elizabeth ("Betsy") Crane strains the book, and the narrative voices are so similar it's often hard to tell where Lois cuts off and Betsy picks up. The confusing finish, in which Betsy and Lois craft several endings of varying degrees of happiness, fails to deliver on the intriguing premise. (Apr.)
[Page ]. Copyright 2016 PWxyz LLC
