I don't want to ruin things for anyone who has yet to read this so will try not to give too much away, however when Olive visits her son in New York it was the first time that the voice seemed to slip to me. As for the airport scene? Phooey. That's what I reckon. So yeah, "Security" was the weakest story by far. The rest were perfect slices of lives, stories full to busting and yet none of it feeling over written. Wonderful.
BUT!
I would not have picked this book up in a million years. This is the cover:
and I still have no clue what the fuck it has to do with the book. Whose back is that meant to be? It sure as fuck ain't Olive's - we know she's a much larger than average woman in her seventies. I can't think of anyone else in the book who this could be either. So presumably the publishers think this is an enticing cover? It looks like a certain type of frothy book, non literary, a girly affair. It's not. This book won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, and hurrah, it is a well deserved win. There's no mention of it on the cover (yet) and hopefully when there is it will give others who may pass this by pause for thought. If it hadn't have been for Nik Perring raving about this I would not have bothered. Thanks Nik - it's brilliant, and I wholeheartedly recommend it to all.
