Pessl, M: Special Topics in Calamity Physics - Softcover

Marisha Pessl

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0143112236 ISBN 13: 9780143112235

Publisher: PENGUIN Group (USA) Inc., 2007

Synopsis

She found her teacher dead - hanging by a piece of electrical cord. The North Carolina police think it was suicide. Her former friends - the Bluebloods - blame her for being there. And her father tells her to leave it alone. But Blue van Meer is a student of books and can't let a mystery go. Because all her life puzzles both complicated and intricate have littered her path - her mother's death in a car crash; a childhood spent roaming from town to town; her dad's serial affairs. Are these the fantasies of a teenager too lonely or too clever for her own good? Or has Blue stumbled on something so dark, so devious, that her whole world is about to be flipped upside down?

About this title

Review:

"A whirling, glittering, multifaceted marvel, delivered in an irrepressibly smart and flamboyant new voice." (The New York Times)

"A brilliant debut, guaranteed to join the ranks of The Secret History and the Virgin Suicides as one of those rare books to become a cult hit and instant classic from the moment of publication." (The Sunday Telegraph)

“An escapist extravaganza packed with literary and pop culture allusions, mischievous characterisations, erotic intrigue, murders and unstoppable narrative energy.” (Entertainment Weekly)

"One of the most impressive debut novels I have ever read ... Pessl's level of precision, coupled, of course, with her ability to create a plot that stops you doing anything apart from read it, that makes her such an exciting writer." (The Independent on Sunday)

"Made me stay up all night reading. I loved this book." (Audrey Niffenegger)

"A wordy, funny book." (The New York Observer)

"Blue Van Meer writes of the year her life 'unstitched like a snagged sweater'.This first novel is a hybrid, part coming-of-age story, part murder mystery. But first and foremost, it's a dazzling prose circus, full of hilarious metaphors and studded with footnotes, some real, many invented. Emily Janice Card (daughter of novelist Orson Scott Card) gives a bravura performance. She's an innocent, even foolish teenage girl with the bookishness of an Oxford don. Card dances through this minefield of a text, never getting lost in a sentence or mispronouncing a word. The absence of the drawings present in the text is noticeable but in no way mars this spirited aural romp." (AudioFile Magazine)

Review:

Hip, ambitious and imaginative. ("Los Angeles Times")

An arresting story and that rarest of delights, a great ending. (Salon.com)

Wholly original and riotously entertaining. ("The Christian Science Monitor")

Required reading for devotees of inventive new fiction. ("The New York Times")

A whirling, glittering, multifaceted marvel. (Janet Maslin, "The New York Times")

Pessls literary pyrotechnics are just a sideshow; its her irresistible heroine Blue who makes the novels heart beat. ("People," Critics Choice)

Pesslas literary pyrotechnics are just a sideshow; itas her irresistible heroine Blue who makes the novelas heart beat. ("People," Criticas Choice)

Pessl s literary pyrotechnics are just a sideshow; it s her irresistible heroine Blue who makes the novel s heart beat. ("People", Critic s Choice)

This skylarking book will leave readers salivating for more. The joys of this shrewdly playful narrative lie not only in the high-low darts and dives of Pessl's tricky plotting, but in her prose, which floats and runs as if by instinct, unpremeditated and unerring. ("The New York Times Book Review")

Pessl's literary pyrotechnics are just a sideshow; it's her irresistible heroine Blue who makes the novel's heart beat. ("People", Critic's Choice)

About this edition

• Publisher: PENGUIN Group (USA) Inc.
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0143112236
• ISBN 13: 9780143112235
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 752