Billy and Girl

Levy, Deborah

ISBN 10: 1564782026 / ISBN 13: 9781564782021

Published by Deep Vellum Publishing, 1999

About this Item

Former library book; may include library markings. Used book that is in excellent condition. May show signs of wear or have minor defects. Seller Inventory # 10734988-6

Bibliographic Details

Title: Billy and Girl

Publisher: Deep Vellum Publishing

Publication Date: 1999

Binding: Soft cover

Condition: Very Good

Edition: 1st American ed.

About this title

Synopsis:

In this brilliant, inventive, tragic farce, Deborah Levy creates the ultimate dysfunctional kids, Billy and his sister Girl. Apparently abandoned years ago by their parents, they now live alone somewhere in England. Girl spends much of her time trying to find their mother, going to strangers' doors and addressing whatever Prozac woman who answers as "Mom." Billy spends his time fantasizing a future in which he will be famous, perhaps in the United States as a movie star, or as a psychiatrist, or as a doctor to blondes with breast enlargements, or as the author of "Billy England's Book of Pain." Together they both support and torture each other, barely able to remember their pasts but intent on forging a future that will bring them happiness and reunite them with the ever-elusive Mom. Billy and Girl are every boy and girl reeling from the pain of their childhoods, forgetting what they need to forget, inventing worlds they think will be better, but usually just prolonging nightmares as they begin to create--or so it seems--alternative personalities that will allow them to survive and conquer and punish. In the end, the reader is as bewildered as Billy and Girl--have they found Mom and a semblance of family, or are, they completely out of control and ready to explode?

Review:

"Best of all is Levy's smart, modern prose style. The South-African-born Londoner writes with a sensibility once called "Beat." An excellent, entertaining selection."?-- "Booklist"

"An ambitious work by the author of "Beautiful Mutant"s, this complex and touching novel explores the themes of identity and a missing moral center with rare aplomb."?-- "PW"