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Ramshackle
Roe is like any other fifteen year old suburban Chicago teenager. Her only worries are schoolwork, keeping up with her wayward best friend, and whether or not she should sleep with her boyfriend. Then her adoptive father, a locksmith, disappears one winter's day without explanation. As Roe tries to find out where he is and why he left, her past unravels, revealing secrets and lies that will change her future forever. This is a beautiful novel about abandonment, identity and self-discovery in the harshest of circumstances, set in suburban Chicago. An extraordinarily assured debut. Ideal for fans of Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels, Anne Patchett's The Magician's Assistant and Kent Haruf's Plainsong.
- GenresFictionLiterary Fiction
110 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 23, 2012
About the author
Elizabeth Reeder
18 books19 followersElizabeth K Reeder writes novels, essays, and stories. She also writes for the radio. Her first novel, Ramshackle was shortlisted for a number of awards including a Saltire Literary award (2013). Her second novel, Fremont, a story of ill-starred fairytale romance is full of prejudice and desire, garnered great reviews, and re-jigs notions of home, identity and citizenship. An Archive of Happiness, a novel, will be published by Penned in the Margins in September 2020. microbursts, a collection of lyric and intermedial essays about the places between life and death, memoir and poetry - a collaborative work between herself and the artist Amanda Thomson - will be published in spring 2021 as part of Prototype’s interdisciplinary strand. Her interest in the essay (in particular in experimental, hybrid forms) has developed from a desire to write so that language, form and structure embed knowledge in a way that can be ‘read’ like poetry and art with a high level of complexity and intentional ambiguity. She holds a doctorate in English Literature/Creative Writing and is a senior lecturer Creative Writing at University of Glasgow. She organises and is invited to run workshops, seminars and talks on a range of subjects, including her own books and processes; the essay; exuberant creative failure; giving and receiving feedback, and on subjects she explores in her texts such as: illness, grief, Chicago and its architecture, archives (especially difficult, elusive archives), family, narrative structure and many others. In 2019-20 she co-runs Arts Lab Lab on Reading and writing Death and Dying with Dr Naomi Richards and Amy Shea. She is a MacDowell Fellow. twitter: @ekreeder / instagram: @ekreeder26
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
November 7, 2012
EKR was my creative writing tutor once upon a time and this is her long over due debut. And as I expected it is a work of art. The novel is small, just over 160 pages but like a rich chocolate cake I ate it with a teaspoon and licked the spoon after each delicious sentence. This is the tale of a teenager girl, Roe, who has lost her dad and in the space of her week of searching she discovers herself and her history. I loved this novel and my past teacher is inspiring me all over again.
September 5, 2012
Ramshackle is written in the voice of Roe, a fifteen-year-old girl who wakes up to find that her father has left her, alone, abandoned, with no warning or explanation. We stay with Roe as she wrestles with her emotions and memories, the clues and contradictions they contain. Her father is a locksmith and the whole book felt to me like a cleverly constructed lock, the story revealing itself through Roe's mind with a series of expertly executed clicks and shifts. Reeder's prose is understated and elegant with a sureness of touch and skillful, poetic economy. One of those books I was sorry to finish as I wanted more. Looking forward to this author's next book.
September 13, 2012
There are books you admire or which you know are good without particularly liking them, but I just loved this one.
The young girl and her cool aunt, the best friend, and the missing father are all really strong characters, powerfully drawn
The sustained tension of waiting to hear what's happened to the father is combined with such a strong sense of the people and the place meant I just didn't want it to end.
The young girl and her cool aunt, the best friend, and the missing father are all really strong characters, powerfully drawn
The sustained tension of waiting to hear what's happened to the father is combined with such a strong sense of the people and the place meant I just didn't want it to end.
May 4, 2018
I am always looking for interesting elements of technique, and Elizabeth Reeder uses two of which I take particular note.
Firstly the repetition of a scene. It is the first scene in the book, the last time Roe saw her father before he disappears. Then the scene is repeated soon after, when she realises he is missing and her perception is coloured by this knowledge. Then at the end of the book it is repeated again, when Roe finds out what has happened to him. This is simple but subtle. It goes to character; how character is changed by events, how perception of the same event is translated, or how aspects take on different significance. Fledgling writers are encouraged to think of the character 'arc', so that the character changes throughout, due to story events. This is an encouraging example of how this does not need to be dramatic. Actually I am not sure that Roe does 'change', other than to become increasingly more burdened by life's heavy load - but these repeated scenes demonstrate a responsive, incremental 'change', of how we become layered with coatings laid on us by the twists and turns of life.
The second technique is significant in creating Roe's voice. She is narrating in the first person present tense. She speaks aloud with inverted commas, as do the other characters, but intermingled with this are Roe's added observations or interpretations, often contradictory, that you have to spot carefully (plaudits to the copy editors). This shows so well how we have at least two versions of ourself, public and private, and how we have to amend or moderate ourselves to fit in. As a device, it is useful for disclosing information without 'dumping' it by way of great expository paragraphs.
Lastly I ponder some of the book's Goodreads reviews, the criticisms of not knowing what is going on because of the use of present tense for both present and past, and lack of tags. I think, overall, this approach creates a rather dreamy feel to the book - and yes, it is true you do sometimes have to re-read a piece of dialogue to see who was speaking and when it took place - but this is so congruent with the weird chemical reaction that occurs in your brain when some huge event happens in life. Roe was being hit with so much, in so few days, I don't think she had any responsibility to present her story in a way that suits the reader - just the same as you wouldn't in real life say to someone who has just experienced a big event 'Well, I must say you are not articulating your trauma very logically.'
So I would sum this novel up as one of congruence, of subtlety and of feeling - and also exciting, because there is never a moment when you are not wondering: 'What happened?'
Firstly the repetition of a scene. It is the first scene in the book, the last time Roe saw her father before he disappears. Then the scene is repeated soon after, when she realises he is missing and her perception is coloured by this knowledge. Then at the end of the book it is repeated again, when Roe finds out what has happened to him. This is simple but subtle. It goes to character; how character is changed by events, how perception of the same event is translated, or how aspects take on different significance. Fledgling writers are encouraged to think of the character 'arc', so that the character changes throughout, due to story events. This is an encouraging example of how this does not need to be dramatic. Actually I am not sure that Roe does 'change', other than to become increasingly more burdened by life's heavy load - but these repeated scenes demonstrate a responsive, incremental 'change', of how we become layered with coatings laid on us by the twists and turns of life.
The second technique is significant in creating Roe's voice. She is narrating in the first person present tense. She speaks aloud with inverted commas, as do the other characters, but intermingled with this are Roe's added observations or interpretations, often contradictory, that you have to spot carefully (plaudits to the copy editors). This shows so well how we have at least two versions of ourself, public and private, and how we have to amend or moderate ourselves to fit in. As a device, it is useful for disclosing information without 'dumping' it by way of great expository paragraphs.
Lastly I ponder some of the book's Goodreads reviews, the criticisms of not knowing what is going on because of the use of present tense for both present and past, and lack of tags. I think, overall, this approach creates a rather dreamy feel to the book - and yes, it is true you do sometimes have to re-read a piece of dialogue to see who was speaking and when it took place - but this is so congruent with the weird chemical reaction that occurs in your brain when some huge event happens in life. Roe was being hit with so much, in so few days, I don't think she had any responsibility to present her story in a way that suits the reader - just the same as you wouldn't in real life say to someone who has just experienced a big event 'Well, I must say you are not articulating your trauma very logically.'
So I would sum this novel up as one of congruence, of subtlety and of feeling - and also exciting, because there is never a moment when you are not wondering: 'What happened?'
January 14, 2023
Interesting and fresh voice. The book got a little weighed down
in the middle, describing train stops. Like a filler for the book while moving towards an uncomfortable conclusion. Events in the beginning and end but just holding. Maybe that is how life felt for Roe as she unravels her father’s life. And Sabotages her own.
in the middle, describing train stops. Like a filler for the book while moving towards an uncomfortable conclusion. Events in the beginning and end but just holding. Maybe that is how life felt for Roe as she unravels her father’s life. And Sabotages her own.
February 24, 2016
I'm not really sure what to say about this...I very nearly gave up at 25%, as my general rule of thumb is that if a book hasn't grabbed me by a quarter of the way through then it's not for me. I persevered, making a conscious effort to sit down and find the time to read on. I finished it the following day, but am still wondering just what I actually read!
Whilst some might find the prose lyrical, and cathartic, I found it mildly irritating and confusing. The constant use of the present tense, regardless of whether or not the narrator was talking of a flashback, meant that I spent most of the time in a state of confusion as to when the events were taking place.
Not for me, although I can appreciate that some might like the writing style.
Whilst some might find the prose lyrical, and cathartic, I found it mildly irritating and confusing. The constant use of the present tense, regardless of whether or not the narrator was talking of a flashback, meant that I spent most of the time in a state of confusion as to when the events were taking place.
Not for me, although I can appreciate that some might like the writing style.
August 8, 2012
This is a very assured first novel from Elizabeth Reeder and I can understand why it was critically acclaimed. the novel is written in the voice of the main character a fifteen year old girl called Roe whose father has mysteriously disappeared. The book deals with a lot of different themes - loss, trust, honesty, coming of age and more - but does not feel in any way worthy. This a is a tight and believable tale and will keep you guessing, but I found I cared about the characters and was willing something good to happen. I was lucky enough to buy this on Kindle in one of Amazon's deals of the day - an absolute bargain!
December 30, 2014
In a small town on the shores of the Great Lakes, 15-year-old Roe lives with her locksmith father. One winter morning, Roe awakes to find her father missing. So begins a voyage of discovery for young Roe - who she is, where she came from, and also learning lots about her father (how he used to disappear for weeks at a time when she was a baby), her mother who abandoned her and her father's siblings, Linden and Duncan. The story is all about how Roe copes with her father's disappearance, both at school and in her dealings with her family and friends. A really enthralling read - 8.5/10.
December 10, 2019
This book was all about the setting. Emptiness and loss echoed back through the bleak and snowy landscape of Chicago. The world of the central character, Roe, is frozen in the moment of her father's disappearance. You can feel her eyes searching the world around her, reading the details of her environment, hoping for something or someone to emerge that will explain her existence in this featureless world. Elizabeth Reeder skillfully moves through place and time in an extraordinary evocation of what it feels like to be left behind.
May 25, 2012
Reeder's prose is clumsy and awkward at times, inconsistent enough that it didn't feel like an intentional style decision, and yet there was something compelling and beautiful about this book. The elements of it were nothing special - teenage girl, irresponsible aunt, asshole boyfriend, missing father, the setting, the plot - but somehow they fell together to make a beautiful book. This book is greater than the sum of its parts.
September 2, 2012
Reeder confidently deals with complex themes of loss and abandonment. Protagonist Roe is a typical teenager (though probably quite mature for her age)whose life is thrown into turmoil by the disappearance of her father. Unmaternal Aunt Linden steps in to help Roe, who is now uncovering a series of family secrets that cause her to question the relationship with her father that she always considered solid and immovable.
I spent a lovely Saturday afternoon devouring this in a one-er.
I spent a lovely Saturday afternoon devouring this in a one-er.
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November 13, 2014I thought this book was wonderfully planned out. The way the main characters toughts changed frequently throughout the book was genius. It could have used a little more information towards the start of the book, but then again the plot was reaveled during the middle-end; therefore leaving me hooked for hours at a time. I often wonder about the what happens to the minor roles/charactes in this book. That is a great thing though because it is open to interpritation.
June 11, 2012
This was a beautiful and melancholy tale.
September 28, 2012
A little bit odd, a little bit interesting, not totally sure what to make of it to be honest. Quite hard to follow/get into sometimes and then others it just flows.
April 10, 2015
I love this book. It was brilliant looking thing and the writing drove home the voice of the main character, Roe. It was easy to get immersed inside Reeder's talented writing.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews