In this Book
- Helen Keller Really Lived: A Novel
- Book
- 2014
- Published by: The University of Alabama Press
summary
The newest novel by Elisabeth Sheffield, the award-winning author of Gone and Fort Da
What does it mean to really live? Or not?
Set in eastern, upstate New York, Helen Keller Really Lived features a fortyish former barfly and grifter who must make a living in the wake of her wealthy husband’s death, and who finds work in a clinic helping women seeking reproductive assistance. The other main character is the grifter’s dead ex-husband, a Ukrainian hooker-to-healer success story, who prior to his demise was a gynecologist and after, an amateur folklorist, or ghostlorist, who collected and provided scholarly commentary on the stories of his fellow “revenants.”
Their intertwined stories explore the mistakes, miscarriages, inadequacies, and defeats that may have led to their divorce, including his failure (according to her) to “fully live.”
As it investigates the theme of what it means to “really live” or not, Elisabeth Sheffield’s brilliant new novel is also an exploration of virtual reality in the sense of the experience provided by literature. It is a novel awash in a multitude of voices, from the obscenity-laced, Nabokovian soliloquys of the dead Ukrainian doctor, to the trade-school / midcentury-romance-novel-constrained style of his dead mother-in-law.
What does it mean to really live? Or not?
Set in eastern, upstate New York, Helen Keller Really Lived features a fortyish former barfly and grifter who must make a living in the wake of her wealthy husband’s death, and who finds work in a clinic helping women seeking reproductive assistance. The other main character is the grifter’s dead ex-husband, a Ukrainian hooker-to-healer success story, who prior to his demise was a gynecologist and after, an amateur folklorist, or ghostlorist, who collected and provided scholarly commentary on the stories of his fellow “revenants.”
Their intertwined stories explore the mistakes, miscarriages, inadequacies, and defeats that may have led to their divorce, including his failure (according to her) to “fully live.”
As it investigates the theme of what it means to “really live” or not, Elisabeth Sheffield’s brilliant new novel is also an exploration of virtual reality in the sense of the experience provided by literature. It is a novel awash in a multitude of voices, from the obscenity-laced, Nabokovian soliloquys of the dead Ukrainian doctor, to the trade-school / midcentury-romance-novel-constrained style of his dead mother-in-law.
Table of Contents
Download Full Book
- Chapter Two. “Kick Me”
- pp. 45-62
- Chapter Four. “A Reason to Fight”
- pp. 101-110
- "Here’s a story, détka"
- pp. 147-158
- Chapter Six. “The First Cut is the Deepest”
- pp. 161-182
- "I’m on to you, my Sneekalinka."
- pp. 231-246
- Chapter Eight. “Life is Not a Lab”
- pp. 263-282
- Chapter Nine. “Not Okay”
- pp. 285-318
- "Where do I start, détka?"
- pp. 319-360
- Chapter Ten. “The Intelligence of Absence”
- pp. 365-408
- "So this is what it comes too."
- pp. 409-412
Additional Information
ISBN
9781573668484
Related ISBN(s)
9781573661812
MARC Record
OCLC
889675605
Pages
428
Launched on MUSE
2014-08-30
Language
English
Open Access
No
Copyright
2014