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Crocodile Soup
Crocodile Soup
Author: Julia Darling
Dear Gert, — If you won't write to me, then could you send me some money? — I believe you have a good job. A few hundred pounds would be helpful. — Don't send cash, as the post often gets stolen. Send a cheque. — I am your mother. — JeanGert Hardcastle is thirty-something and unlucky in love. She is also estranged from her mother, Jean. As Crocodi...  more » opens, she thinks she has found "the One"--the enigmatic Eva, who serves coffee in the cafeteria in the museum where Gert works as a curator cataloging Egyptian artifacts. As Gert embarks on her hilarious and poignant pursuit of Eva, she looks back on her eccentric childhood and her relationship with Jean through a series of vivid and surreal flashbacks.As she revisits her past, Gert brings to life the bizarre and endearing members of her family: her obsessive twin, Frank, with whom she communicates telepathically; her father, George, who vanishes to Africa to salvage the family crocodile farm; her vain, neglectful mother, Jean; and the family ghost--a Victorian poet who haunts the attic. Gert's story is punctuated by terse, intriguing letters from jean to which she does not respond, and ambiguous encounters with Eva.In her struggle to come to terms with her mother, Gert opens up to Eva, and begins to understand more about her past. Is Gert destined to remain the scaffolding for those around her or will she find her savior? In a lyrical narrative studded with relentless humor and giddy self-deprecation, Julia Darling introduces an irresistible cast of characters whose shared story is unforgettable.
ISBN-13: 9780141015163
ISBN-10: 0141015160
Publication Date: 3/6/2004
Pages: 272
Edition: Re-issue
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0 stars, based on 0 rating
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Book Type: Paperback
Other Versions: Hardcover
Members Wishing: 0
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 reviewed Crocodile Soup on + 347 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 3
Beyond "quirky", but not quite bizarre. A realistic farce, perhaps? I dunno, but I really enjoyed it. Fascinating structure: alternating present/past chapters, with the past catching up by the end of the story.
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 reviewed Crocodile Soup on + 32 more book reviews
Gert is trying to live her life while coming to terms with her past. She realizes that she had buried herself (archeologist humor, wink-wink) in her work as a way of coping with her traumatic childhood. She has obviously suffered from mental illness, as did her mother and twin- a boy genius. A fasinating look at a dysfuntional family trying to cope with mental illness in an age where there was little to do about it. Wild twist at the end that is perfect.


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