Elizabeth Stories

By Isabel Huggan

Book Overview

Book annotation not available for this title.Title: The Elizabeth StoriesAuthor: Huggan, Isabel/ Martineau, AlinePublisher: Oberon PrPublication Date: 1999/10/01Number of Pages: Binding Type:... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0140101993
• ISBN13: 9780140101997
• Release Date: January 1988
• Publisher: Penguin Group USA
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.8" x 0.3" x 5.3"

Customer Reviews

The Dark and Mysterious Side of a Girl Coming of Age

These interconnected short stories are about the dark and mysterious side of a girl coming of age in a small, rural Canadian community. The mundane quality of puberty is intermeshed with sexual awakening. The girl has cold, unfeeling parents who try to instill the values of puritanism vs. sexual curiosity. The stories also deal with domestic violence and other secrets and shame of home life. The stories are all interesting but some require slow reading to really take them in.

Beautiful, funny and moving.

I read this book from cover to cover yesterday, and couldn't put it down. Isabel Huggan's prose is beautiful, spot-on and wickedly funny. Her insight into the lives and minds of children is amazingly, cuttingly accurate, and I was absolutely mesmerized by the skill of her story-telling. I am ordering _You Never Know_ today, and can't wait to see more stories by this author. Fantastic.

Amazingly accurate

"The Elizabeth Stories" is a collection of linked short stories about a young girl growing up in a small, stultifying Canadian town. There is constant conflict between Elizabeth's mother's emphasis on propriety and Elizabeth's own nature, which is honest, lusty, forthright and innocent. Elizabeth encounters difficult situations she cannot change, only observe. Isabel Huggan's observations on childhood and adolescence are amazing. Her sharply accurate prose, clean and fresh, delivers instantly recognizable experiences and emotions. Though many of Elizabeth's experiences are painful, the stories are told with warmth and compassion, and some subtle humor, so they are not unbearable at all.If you love fine writing, this is a book for you.