In Search of Adam - Softcover

Caroline Smailes

3.53

366 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1906321027 ISBN 13: 9781906321024

Publisher: The Friday Project Limited, 2008

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A taut and beautifully written debut novel by an exciting and accomplished new author. Motherless, rootless and unprotected, Jude Williams' childhood is fractured by the horror and experience of sexual abuse, forcing her to exist somewhere and nowhere in-between childhood and adulthood. Caught within the limitations of her own language and trapped within a family secret, Jude becomes the consequence of her mother's tragedy. As she moves through the 1980s, Jude's life is buffeted by choice and destiny and she collects experiences that layer her personal tragedy and plunge her into the darkest of worlds.

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Review:

‘Will Self and Caroline Smailes are arch-experimentalists’ OBSERVER

‘A stark and shocking tale told unflinchingly yet with outstanding sensitivity’
Dave Hill, author of The Adoption

‘Original, authentic and technically brilliant, Caroline Smailes' In Search of Adam is a debut of remarkable quality and devastating power’
Nicholas Royle, author of Antwerp

Synopsis:

On March 26 1980, I was six years, four months and two days old. I was dressed and ready for school. It was 8:06am on my digital watch. My mother was still in bed. I went into her room to wake her. I found her lying on top of her duvet cover. She wasn't wearing any clothes. Her ocean eyes were open. She wasn't sleeping. And from the corner of her mouth, a line of lumpy sick joined her to the pool that was stuck to her cheek. Next to her, on her duvet I saw an empty bottle. Vodka. And there were eleven tablets. Small round and white. And I saw a scrap of ripped paper. There were words on it. jude, i have gone in search of adam. i love you baby.

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