Another Alice Thomas Ellis book. I feel like a tease writing about these books because they're so hard to find. I'll only post two excerpts that I especially like. By the way, isn't that one of the most awful covers you've ever seen?
"I forgot to tell you about one occult experience which I share with my cousin. We both, when little, floated downstairs. My cousin told his mother immediately and she, without looking up from her ironing, said, 'Of course you did.' I didn't tell anybody, but I must have been 19 before it occurred to me as odd, and I wondered if I really had. I still wonder in my sillier moments, because I KNOW I did. If anyone has a rational explanation for this phenomenon he will kindly keep it to himself."
This really stopped me cold because I, too, floated downstairs once. I was between nine and sixteen years old. Maybe it only happens to children. Have any of you had this experience? I'd love to know.
"I am wondering whether I shall now begin to be able to concentrate for more than ten minutes at a time, since for the larger part of my life I have felt that whatever I was doing, I should really be doing something else. Washing nappies I should have been painting pictures. Painting pictures I should have been mincing liver. Pushing the pram round the park I should have been hoovering the house, and hoovering the house I should have been doing it with a greater degree of thoroughness. I detested going out in the evenings, not only because I detest going out in the evenings, but because I was afraid I would return to find that the house had burned down and the children were gone. I was always quite surprised not to find the garden garnished with fire-fighting equipment and even now when I get home I still have to creep into the bedrooms to check that the occupants are present and breathing."
Come on, who can't identify with that?
That is a dreadful cover. The poor woman looks like she has been punched in the face or something. We did not have stairs in the house I grew up in so can't say I've ever floated.
ReplyDeleteI can only hope (without actually getting up and walking upstairs to check) that the book was published after her death. The cat comes off okay, but the author looks awful!
DeleteI don't recall ever floating down stairs - wish I could say I did! I can definitely identify with the leaving/coming home angst - a la Rebecca: What's that glow in the sky?! Too early for dawn surely! And also the checking for breathing.
ReplyDeleteIt was a strange experience. I felt like Mary Poppins wafting down the stairs, upright but definitely descending without my feet touching the stairs.
DeleteI love the cover, the first thing I noticed. Oh, oh, well someone else must like like it or they wouldn't have published it. I can't say I floated but I remember being home sick, dreaming that a favourite poster had fallen off the wall that had been there, I was looking in the window and saw it fall. When I went back to work the poster had fallen and was in the exact place I saw it. I never forgot it, was about age 30. Very twilight zoney.
ReplyDeleteI think the cover has, what? an 1980s look to it? It definitely looks dated to me and not especially flattering to the author.
DeleteYour experience with the poster falling off the wall is even eerier than my floating down the stairs! Psychic!