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Broken Biscuits
Agnes is senile; her granddaughter Jodie is an oddball. But how did they get that way? In a hurtling plot that moves between Jodie's life going forwards and Agnes' life going backwards, welcome to the dark, hilarious world of the mad.
Agnes is so far gone that she's been carted off and institutionalised. She was a liability with her steaming hot flat, squashed flies and lifetime collection of sugar lumps and toenail clippings. As her memories play back - marriages, wars, affairs and an Edinburgh childhood with seven brothers and sisters - there are plenty of things in her life that she really should say sorry for.
Jodie's got her own problems - she's eccentric, the sort of person that people cross the road to avoid. With advice from Dr Hassani and support worker June, she tries really hard to get care in the community to work and to make new friends. Trouble is she just doesn't fit in. And now she's decided to spring Agnes from the old people's home with the help of willing accomplice Owen - a moody yo-yo himself.
Funny, grim yet ultimately uplifting, this is a dark saga of family history and secrets, and a seaside love story of two misfits who find love in a hostile world.
Agnes is so far gone that she's been carted off and institutionalised. She was a liability with her steaming hot flat, squashed flies and lifetime collection of sugar lumps and toenail clippings. As her memories play back - marriages, wars, affairs and an Edinburgh childhood with seven brothers and sisters - there are plenty of things in her life that she really should say sorry for.
Jodie's got her own problems - she's eccentric, the sort of person that people cross the road to avoid. With advice from Dr Hassani and support worker June, she tries really hard to get care in the community to work and to make new friends. Trouble is she just doesn't fit in. And now she's decided to spring Agnes from the old people's home with the help of willing accomplice Owen - a moody yo-yo himself.
Funny, grim yet ultimately uplifting, this is a dark saga of family history and secrets, and a seaside love story of two misfits who find love in a hostile world.
- GenresFiction
256 pages, Hardcover
First published March 30, 2006
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
November 19, 2012
For me the most interesting thing about this book was its structure. We have two intertwined stories, Jodie's, which is told in chronological order beginning on January 17th and ending on June 15th, and Agnes's, Jodie's grandmother, whose story is told backwards beginning in 2001 and ending in 1920. So, of course, we get to see scenes from Jodie's life as she grows up too since many of the earlier scenes involve her or at least mention her. At te beginning of the book Agnes is taken into care. She's suffering from Alzheimer's and really can't care for herself. Jodie has her own problems. She's been in an out of psychiatric care for some eighteen years but can function on her own even if she does struggle to cope with most normal social situations.
Throughout the book we learn a bit about what happened to both of them and also get a look at psychiatric care throughout the years as, we learn, there is a history of mental instability in the family. The book is marketed as “a moving, darkly comic début novel” but I didn't find it especially funny. It's mostly sad and occasionally rather pathetic. Jodie is often surprisingly insightful though and most of the stabs at humour come at her expense..
The structure is clever and used well. A final coda set three years after the primary events answers those final nagging questions.
I can see from other reviews on Goodreads that many struggled with this book. The Amazon reviewers have been kinder—a couple compare Kettle to Alan Bennett but I can't see it although the material is certainly the kind of stuff he might have handled earlier in his career perhaps as a TV play.
Throughout the book we learn a bit about what happened to both of them and also get a look at psychiatric care throughout the years as, we learn, there is a history of mental instability in the family. The book is marketed as “a moving, darkly comic début novel” but I didn't find it especially funny. It's mostly sad and occasionally rather pathetic. Jodie is often surprisingly insightful though and most of the stabs at humour come at her expense..
The structure is clever and used well. A final coda set three years after the primary events answers those final nagging questions.
I can see from other reviews on Goodreads that many struggled with this book. The Amazon reviewers have been kinder—a couple compare Kettle to Alan Bennett but I can't see it although the material is certainly the kind of stuff he might have handled earlier in his career perhaps as a TV play.
February 15, 2009
The story revolves around Jodie and her grandmother Agnes. Agnes is senile and has just been moved into a home by her son (Jodie's father).
Both Jodie and Agnes are very strange characters and this story examines through Agnes's re-telling just how they got like this. Agnes travels back through time, telling her story with difficulty at times, due to her failing memory - but the reader discovers from her story the events that made Jodie end up the way she is.
Sometimes Agnes's story can be a little confusing, but once you realise that it is being told backwards, things fall into place. Agnes sees or hears something in the here and now which she makes sense of by recalling events from the past. After a while, this way of telling the story really does work well.
Jodie tells her side of the story by slowly moving forward - yet her tales interlink so well with those of Agnes, the book flows perfectly.
All too often we form opinions of other people without finding out the larger picture behind them - this story is like looking through a family photo album with the voices of Jodie and Agnes filling in the gaps.
Often sad and bleak, but more often funny and heartwarming, the book describes lives and worlds that many people have to inhabit.
A very well written first novel that will leave a lasting impression.
Both Jodie and Agnes are very strange characters and this story examines through Agnes's re-telling just how they got like this. Agnes travels back through time, telling her story with difficulty at times, due to her failing memory - but the reader discovers from her story the events that made Jodie end up the way she is.
Sometimes Agnes's story can be a little confusing, but once you realise that it is being told backwards, things fall into place. Agnes sees or hears something in the here and now which she makes sense of by recalling events from the past. After a while, this way of telling the story really does work well.
Jodie tells her side of the story by slowly moving forward - yet her tales interlink so well with those of Agnes, the book flows perfectly.
All too often we form opinions of other people without finding out the larger picture behind them - this story is like looking through a family photo album with the voices of Jodie and Agnes filling in the gaps.
Often sad and bleak, but more often funny and heartwarming, the book describes lives and worlds that many people have to inhabit.
A very well written first novel that will leave a lasting impression.
July 21, 2010
4/10. Didn't like this one much. A bit of a chore to get to the end of it.
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February 5, 2015I am puzzled by reviews of this book that describe it as light, pleasant or funny. I found it to be dark, depressing and a drudgery to read.
November 17, 2011
I enjoyed this book. I thought that despite the odd characters it was a light, pleasant read.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews