by Jonathan Coe
First published 1995
Ivy watches her mother rearrange the living room furniture for the third time this week. The cushions never seem right, the coffee table always sits at the wrong angle, and nothing stays where it belongs for long. Her family operates by its own peculiar logic. Her father collects newspaper clippings about minor local accidents. Her brother practices magic tricks that never work. Her sister writes letters to celebrities who never write back. Ivy finds herself caught between wanting to escape this domestic absurdity and recognizing that her own habits might be just as strange. She counts the cracks in the sidewalk on her way to work, saves ticket stubs from movies she barely remembers, and talks to her reflection when no one else will listen. The mundane details of suburban life pile up around her like evidence of something she cannot name. In Jonathan Coe's portrait of a young woman coming of age, the boundary between sense and nonsense proves thinner than anyone expects.
Genres: literary-fiction, domestic-fiction, contemporary, family-drama
Vibes: intimate, thought-provoking, whimsical
Tropes: found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Suburban
Period: Contemporary
32 pages · Paperback · Penguin