Karen Joy Fowler's We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves is one of 2014's most memorable and lauded novels. Having received rave reviews across the world, it won the Pen/Faulkner in the United States and then became one of the first works by an American to be shortlisted for the Man Booker.
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Our narrator is Rosemary Cooke, an introverted college student drifting through life.
Slowly, she reveals that her isolation springs from her unconventional upbringing. Her
father is an animal behaviourist, her mother is traumatised, her brother has
gone Awol and her sister, Fern, has vanished entirely. The implication that Fern’s disappearance lies at the heart of her dysfunction is explained in a beautifully judged twist, not so much in the tail as the head.
I talked to Karen on the day We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves was published in the United Kingdom. She was in suitably celebratory mood, sipping prosecco as we discussed (in part one):
Episode 130 - Neel Mukherjee: Part 1
Episode 129 - Meena Kandasamy: Part 4 (Writing Life Revisited)
Episode 128 - Meena Kandasamy: Part 3 (Writing Life Revisited)
Episode 127 - Meena Kandasamy: Part 2 (This Writing Life Revisited)
Episode 126 - Meena Kandasamy reads from The Gipsy Goddess
Episode 125 - Meena Kandasamy: Part 1 (This Writing Life Revisited)
Episode 124 - Rick Bass: Part 5 - For a Little While
Episode 123 - Rick Bass: How do we protest Donald Trump, Scott Pruitt and the rest?
Episode 122 - Rick Bass: Part 4 - For a Little While
Episode 121 - Rick Bass: are you optimisitic about human nature?
Episode 120 - Rick Bass: Part 3 - For a Little While
Episode 119 - Rick Bass on his collection For a Little While (and getting lost in writing)
Episode 118 - Rick Bass: Part 2 - For a Little While
Episode 117 - Rick Bass: Part 1 - For a Little While
Episode 116 - Gary Younge: Part 4
Episode 115 - Gary Younge: Part 3
Episode 114 - Gary Younge: Part 2
Episode 113 - Gary Younge: Part 1
Episode 112 - Kevin Sullivan: Part 5
Episode 111 - Kevin Sullivan: Part 4
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