Eddie's Bastard - Softcover

Kowalski, William

4.07

1,514 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0552998591 ISBN 13: 9780552998598

Publisher: Black Swan, 2001

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Eddie’s Bastard spins the warm, endearing tale of William Amos Mann IV and of the inhabitants of his eponymous small upstate New York town, Mannville. Related in flashback by the adult Billy, the story begins with him being deposited as an infant on the doorstep of his grandfather’s home in a simple wicker basket with a plain two-word message pinned to his shawl reading ‘Eddie’s Bastard’. Eddie had been killed in Vietnam three months earlier - his father, Thomas Mann Jnr, had given up on life, having lost his only son and, he thought, his only heir. But now, suddenly, Thomas has a grandson and an heir - if not to the once-vast Mann fortune (for Thomas had recklessly squandered that in a foolhardy enterprise just after his heroic return from WWII), then at least to the long legacy of the Mann family stories, stretching back to the Civil War. Eddie’s Bastard is filled with episodes of madcap adventure and resonates with the power of lifelong friendship. By turns hilarious, thrilling and heart-breaking, here is a d�but that stays in the mind long after the reading is over.

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Review:

Whoever Billy Mann's mother was, she wasn't one to mince words. "Eddie's Bastard" is the only inscription on the note taped to a picnic basket containing the infant, which is left on the doorstep of "herbalist and failed entrepreneur, Thomas Mann Junior". The depressed Mann immediately accepts that the child is the offspring of his own son, Eddie, recently killed in Vietnam, and sets out to raise him.

Grandpa had been a father in a time when men had nothing to do with the actual day-to-day business of raising children. Men didn't change diapers, warm bottles or nurse babies. As a result, it was Grandpa's wife, and not Grandpa himself, who knew how to do all these things. Had she still been around, no doubt she would have taken over the business of raising me herself. But she--my grandmother--was no longer present to discuss it with; she'd simply disappeared one day when my father, Eddie, was still little, just after the Fiasco of the Ostriches, and Grandpa had never heard from her or of her again.

Still, Grandpa perseveres and baby Billy prospers under his unconventional care. As a child, Billy leads an isolated life--he is home-schooled and their nearest neighbours, the Simpsons, live half a mile away and are on bad terms with Grandpa anyway. But Billy has his family history to keep him company--the Manns were once prominent and wealthy, before the ostrich d�bacle--not to mention the ghosts who share the Mann house and occasionally play tricks on the living inhabitants. At age seven, however, he ventures further afield than his backyard and meets Annie Simpson, a little girl with a terrible secret.

While Billy's relationships with his grandfather and his childhood friend are central to the novel, William Kowalski packs his story with lively subplots including a family curse, the identity of Billy's mother and a legendary diary belonging to a Mann ancestor. Eddie's Bastard is a coming-of-age story that doesn't take itself too seriously. Though the standard elements of domestic drama are all here--abandonment, child abuse, alcoholism, death and loss of innocence--whenever possible, Kowalski prefers to leaven his tragedy with a wink. Only a comedian would bankrupt a family with ostriches, after all. --Alix Wilber

Review:

Wickedly funny and genuinely moving’ -- Attitude

‘A book written with such elegance, maturity and humour it is difficult to believe that the author is only 28 years old’ -- Good Book Guide

‘A remarkable d�but’ -- Time Out

‘Clever, emotional storytelling with laughs, tears, and love’ -- The Times

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