The Extra Large Medium

By Helen Slavin

Book Overview

In this delightful debut novel, Helen Slavin takes the ghost story into a new dimension. Ever since she was a child, Annie Colville has been talking to the dead. She knows they re dead because for some reason they re always dressed in chocolate brown. But Annie s grown up now, and things are getting serious. Especially after she falls for and marries Evan Bees. It s hard enough to lose someone you love; but what if you know they could come back to you? And they just . . . don t? During her long wait for her missing husband to come back to her, in chocolate brown or not, Annie searches through her mother s vast collection of lovers for the other missing man in her life her father and struggles with the questions her gift asks of her. Quirky, irreverent, moving and a little bit spooky, The Extra Large Medium will charm you completely even as it s raising the hairs on the back of your neck."

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0802170323
• ISBN13: 9780802170323
• Release Date: May 2007
• Publisher: Grove Press, Black Cat
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.77 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.0" x 0.8" x 5.3"

Customer Reviews

Great debut novel

I picked up this book at the library on a whim. The writing is elegant and flows easily as it pulls you into the story, following each character to whatever end. The story is beautifully devised but as the other reviewers have mentioned, you can read this in one sitting. It is funny, sad and touching. I think my favorite part is how the characters are developed. Annie struggles to find herself outside of her gift and at the same time, trying to cope with loss and heartbreak. I also liked the message the story conveys of closure. Everyone needs closure and for Annie, it meant discovering what happened to her missing husband and finding a love that would love and accept her despite her gift.

Like an inverse sandwich

This is the story of Annie, the disfunctional Ghost Whisperer of her hometown. The reader is informed very early on in the game about Annie's talents... and their drawbacks. Dead people are mostly the same as living people, fixated on the inane. But the writing and the setting of the general story are very well done, so the book starts out with a bang. The middle third, though, was so dragged down with the main character - who has suffered from a series of emotional blows with which she cannot cope - that I found it very hard to read. And then, the end. Annie begins to heal. Old wounds are explained, and a new character is revealed who will help Annie not to be so isolated. So, you see.... an inverse sandwich! yummy on the outside, dough in the middle. (*)>

A witty and original ghost story

British author Slavin's witty and rather melancholy debut posits some truly terrifying ghosts - drab souls who pester the narrator with the unfinished detritus of dull lives. "Lost cats, squabbles over wills, Crown Derby coffee sets and leather pouffes are about the limits of it....I exist as a kind of customer service department, running a stream of endless errands just to keep these people quiet." As a small child Annie Colville is shadowed by Mrs. Berry, a former owner of their house whose rigid standards of cleanliness are in a perpetual state of outrage. As an adult the dead crowd in on Annie, and you can't really blame her for never quite being in control. Then Annie falls in love and marries, a helpmeet at last. But before we can get to know him Evan Bees disappears and doesn't reappear, though Annie knows he could, living or dead. She waits, drifts and flounders, has a desultory love affair, looks for her unknown father, and employs various strategies to put her "gift" to good use, with mixed results. Other voices alternate with Annie's, first her big-hearted mother who could never help the one person who needed it most, then an archaeologist who becomes interested in Annie from afar. Slavin's comic flashes are quirky and original, and Annie's exhaustion makes her real. But her inability to cope wears on the reader and gives a disjointed quality to the narrative. Still, Slavin's colorful writing and the ever-present hope of something better draw the reader on to a surprising conclusion (that does, however, raise some more questions).

From the Edges to the Center and back to the Edges

This is a "single sitting" type of book, the kind that draws you in and holds you firm until you are done. This is not because the writing is especially good (it IS well done but does seem somewhat crafted) but because author Slavin does a comfortable job of "unwrapping" her characters. Despite utilizing what is quickly becoming an overused literary and cinematic device (dead people), this book does not feel as though the reader is exploring deeply trodden ground. There is good evolution for many of the characters and the "heroine/lost soul" that is Annie wobbles determinedly from the edges to the center to the edges and drags the reader along with her. It does have some good twists and turns and ends up being a most satisfying read that I would recommend.