Sarah Canary

by Karen Joy Fowler

Book Overview

When black-cloaked Sarah Canary wanders into a railway camp in the Washington territories in 1873, Chin Ah Kin is ordered by his uncle to escort ''the ugliest woman he could imagine'' away. Far away. But Chin soon becomes the follower. In the first of many such instances, they are separated, both resurfacing some days later at an insane asylum. Chin has run afoul of the law and Sarah has been committed for observation. Their escape from the asylum...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0805017534
• ISBN13: 9780805017533
• Release Date: January 1991
• Publisher: Henry Holt & Company
• Length: 290 Pages
• Weight: 1.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.3" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

I came to her first book last --

-- and I may like it the best. Karen Joy Fowler is, by far and away, My Favorite Stylist. It's that demure sense of humor that gets under my skin like a fine-edged scalpel. It's that ability to assemble seemingly random tidbits to form a thematic whole (fans of _Wisconsin Death Trip_ will understand the pleasure in this. Fowler does it best, I think, in her short story, "The Elizabeth Complex"). None of her characters are saints, none villains, but they are all human, all the time, and Fowler portrays them with honesty, empathy, and above all, humor.(On a purely personal note, I'm a native of Washington state, and I found it great fun running into all the familiar place-names, especially Squak, my hometown -- known, these days, as Issaquah.)

If You Don't Know Fowler...RUN to This Book!

Out of nowhere, a white woman wanders into a Chinese railway workers' camp. The time is Winter, 1873. The place is the Washington Territory. The woman says nothing. (Nothing discernable, anyway.) No one can explain who the woman is, where she is from, or how she got there. This is the situation Karen Joy Fowler presents to the reader in this astounding, wonderful book. `Sarah Canary' meets many different people on her strange journey and she affects the lives of everyone she meets. Four people in particular fall under her strange spell: Chin - a Chinese railway worker who seeks to take her back where she belongs; B.J. - an escaped mental patient; Harold - a huckster who wants to put Sarah in his traveling freak show; and Adelaide Dixon, a woman suffragist. `Sarah Canary' is all about perceptions. Each of these four characters see Sarah as something slightly different. Their perceptions also cause their lives to each change in different and fascinating ways. When I finished `Sarah Canary,' I realized that Fowler had taught me a lot about the times I live in now. Perceptions are the focus of the book, but Fowler also touches on the cultural differences of different types of people, prejudices, superstitions, and much more. After reading the book, I realized that I had come away with a better (but maybe not a more positive) picture of human nature.From what I know about the history of the book, Fowler had a difficult time finding a publisher, not due to the book's quality, but rather the book's genre. It has none. It has been labeled historical fiction, Western, science fiction, comedy, mystery. It is all of these and none of these. `Sarah Canary' is impossible to pigeonhole. Maybe that's why I lot of people I talk to haven't read it. They're missing a gold mine. I hope you don't miss out. Read it and see why Fowler is one of the most gifted talents writing today. 381 pages

Marvelous, original, great first novel

Karen Joy Fowler's first novel, Sarah Canary, is a marvel, an amazing, original novel about aliens, of all sorts, in the 1870's American West. It is extraordinarily assured, the best first novel I've read in a long time - indeed, in my opinion, at least arguably the best SF first novel of the nineties.It concerns a mysterious woman (?), who cannot speak any recognizable language, who appears in the Pacific Northwest late in the 19th Century. A young Chinese man, Chin Ah-Kin, must try to escort her home, wherever that is. In their travels, they encounter a variety of alienated people: an Indian, a suffragette, etc. The story is thoroughly involving, very moving, beautifully written.

Work of genius!

Sarah Canary is the most dazzling first contact book I have ever read (and one of the few science fiction books that the non-sf readers I've given it to have not only read but loved!) Witty, compassionate, enthralling - a book that makes you think and enjoy doing it! Set in the USA in the late 1800s a mysterious woman appear out of nowhere. Is she a ghost, a madwoman, an alien? Read it and find out (maybe). Fowler is one of the best American writers of the late twentieth century even her shopping lists are a work of art.

Uniquely delightful book

This is one of the best books I've read in the last five or ten years. It has a remarkable sense of place and person, very vivid, very sharp. So many fabulous bits! Interestingly, the novel's "realism" varies as the viewpoint gets farther and closer to the central character, Sarah Canary. Sarah Canary herself resists "objective" interpretation: we as readers, and the other characters in the book, share the experience of making of Sarah what we happen to project on her. Which is, in some sense, precisely what the book is "about", though the experience of reading it is a whole lot more than that.I would recommend this book to people who enjoy literate science fiction, "slipstream" fiction, magic realism, and/or well-crafted prose. I would not recommend it to people who pick up their reading material at the grocery-store checkout line, who need everything explained, or who read to revisit one or another formulaic experience. Sara! h Canary is a unique, and uniquely delightful, read. Highly recommended to those who appreciate such things.