Not the End of the World

by Rebecca Stowe

Not the End of the World signals the arrival of a major new voice in contemporary American fiction.
In much the same way that Kaye Gibbons burst upon the literary scene with her first novel about growing up, Ellen Foster, so has Rebecca Stowe, who has already been compared to Carson McCullers and J.D. Salinger. She gives us a painful and hilarious first-person novel about a bright, troubled girl that captures, as perhaps no other book does, the angst-ridden childhood of many a woman of the Baby Boom generation.
Living in affluent North Bay, Michigan, in the early 1960s, in a house with its own beach, Maggie Pittsfield (daughter of Robert “Sweet is My Middle Name” Pittsfield, owner of a local candy factory) is twelve years old. Unique for her corrosive perspicacity and weird precociousness, she is already deeply depressed and alienated from the eccentricity of her family, the sexual perversity of her school, and the nightmarish banality of her mates. “‘It’s a wonder you have any friends,’ Mother used to say when I still had some. ‘You must become a different person when you leave this house.’ Actually I was six different people....Grandmother said I was possessed by the devil and unless we got him out by my thirteenth birthday, my soul would be lost forever, at least what was left of it....”
In Not the End of the World, Rebecca Stowe renders Maggie’s splintered personality and formidable aggression, which threaten to implode in tragedy, with painful precision and humor.

Genres: Fiction

160 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 1991

Reviews

[Rosa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have never identified with a character as much as I did with this one.
But I can understand why the other person gave this a one-star review. How could she end it like this? How could she?

[Iamshadow · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a fictional book about a protagonist who is part of multiple system, I think the author did well. It's a system with a degree of co-consciousness and shared memory, but also with obvious gaps and grey areas where protagonist Maggie is being kept away from knowledge she can't hold. It's rare to see a system like that in fiction. I thought before reading this was a young adult title. I think it's more an adult book with a child protagonist. It reminds me most strongly of The Little Friend by Donna Tartt, and, like that, this isn't a book to go into expecting clear resolution of story or character arcs. You're just following Maggie and her system mates for a summer and getting glimpses of the cracks in the facades in herselves, her family, and her community here and there. It's not a story you should read if you need your protagonist to have an ally or a safe harbour. Maggie is without a true advocate, and struggles a huge amount because of this. I identified with that, though, and so I enjoyed it very much. Read if you like child-led adult narratives like The Little Friend and To Kill A Mockingbird. Content warnings for unreliable narrator, child abuse (covered up after a child discloses), toxic families, suicidal ideation, sexual assault, mental breakdown and dissociation. Most of these things are alluded to rather than shown.

[April May · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like the character of maggie but the story is too drawn out. I had to google the book because I forgot what it was about and why I decided to read it in the first place. Just as it got good in the end, it ended abruptly without explaining what originally happened to splinter Maggie into differently personalities. It only hinted at it but we weren't told who hurt her and why her family seemed oblivious to her anguish and suffering. I would've have been happier if the author cut out a lot of useless bits and filled us in with more details about the abuse and what caused her troubles. Overall the story was too vague and left the reader frustrated in the end. I would like a sequel following what happened to Maggie after she got sent away, details as to whether her family ever accepted the existence of her disorder and whether she ever got treatment. I was also irritated by the lack of explanation as to why her grandma hated her so much and thought she was evil.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked it.
I think I may have picked up a few things that other people didn’t. ( my wife)
She is being abused by her mother it would seem with knitting needles.
The situation with her teacher. The clicking of her mom knitting. The flash back. The attack on the sofa with the needles.
What’s she gets the other girl to do to her with the stick. I saw the pervert in the woods as a her way of wanting to be abused and also wanting to be saved, or saving another. Then the type of pain she has in school.
I think also birdy is a victim.

I understand why the ending was annoying for people and to some extent I was as well. But I would have been more upset if this had a neat optimistic ending, and be against the grain of the story.

[Cheryl · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book really held my attention up until the last few pages--then it fell flat by not answering so many of the questions I had about the main character. I'm disappointed in the ending.

[Suzie Q · Rating 3 out of 5]

Disappointing ending. It doesn't resolve much. And the title is kind of misleading considering the subject matter. The damage done to the narrator kind of is the end of the world in my opinion.

[J Owens · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed her writing and style, however, I agree with most here as the end was unfulfilling. It felt unfinished and unconcluded. A second one coming?

[Mary A Schmitzer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting

Maggie was a mixed up child for sure. Interesting how she kept her secrets to herself on the inside! Good read.

[Gina Ulicny · Rating 4 out of 5]

4. I read this book because I read a paragraph from it on a friends wall.... something like:

DIFFERENT. I want to be a raisin or a walnut, not just part of the batter....
WOW how I LOVE that paragraph! So, after much Google searching found where it came from, and ordered the book from Amazon.

An interesting story. Point of view from a young girl, and a quirky household. (I’ve stated before, I love quirky characters, when they are explained and understood). And I fell in love with characters in the story. I very much like Rebekah Stowe’s writing style and character development.

I think she is a great story teller - there’s a calmness in her writing even when circumstances in the story aren’t calm and many even be deep - speaking on topics that aren’t always clear..... leaving one to wonder exactly what is she telling us with this antidote or dialogue.

[Kate]

Recommended by Andrew Garrod in his Coming of Age course.

[Lisbeth Solberg · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like Maggie, crazy though she is, but the ending was a bit unconvincing. Love the Yeats poem. "I could have warned you, but you are young,/ So we speak a different tongue."

[CraftyChara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rosa recommended:

[Julia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Troubling………. Judy Blume / Carson McCullers-esque but even more upsetting