Emotionally Weird: A Novel [Paperback]

Kate Atkinson (Author)

Book Description

Release date: July 1, 2001

A hilarious and utterly original novel about mothers, daughters, and love, by the author of Life After Life.

On a weather-beaten island off the coast of Scotland, Effie and her mother, Nora, take refuge in the large, mouldering house of their ancestors and tell each other stories. Nora, at first, recounts nothing that Effie really wants to hear--like who her real father was. Effie tells various versions of her life at college, where in fact she lives in a lethargic relationship with Bob, a student who never goes to lectures, seldom gets out of bed, and to whom Klingons are as real as Spaniards and Germans.

But as mother and daughter spin their tales, strange things are happening around them. Is Effie being followed? Is someone killing the old people? And where is the mysterious yellow dog?

In a brilliant comic narrative which explores the nonsensical power of language and meaning, Kate Atkinson has created another magical masterpiece.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Readers who survive the first 20 pages of this dense and playful novel, with its three different openings, constant jokes, and crowded cast of characters, will find themselves rewarded with a leisurely postmodern romp through the student ferment and bodily indulgences of the early 1970s. Although the publisher has called Emotionally Weird a comic novel, it is essentially unclassifiable, both further-reaching and less "meaningful" than it first appears. Kate Atkinson's book begins with chapter 1 of a bad murder mystery being written by Effie Andrews for a creative-writing course at the University of Dundee in 1972. But the action soon shifts to a wintry island in the Hebrides, where Effie is trying to elicit the story of her parentage from her single mother, Nora, while spinning a humorous first-person narrative of her college life. Only near the end of the book does she finally wrench the story from her mother: Effie's bizarre origins; the identity of her father; and the whole unlikely tale of her mother's family.

Like a Borgesian labyrinth, with other stories thrown in, including a laughably convenient introduction of magic realism, it is impossible to know what to take seriously--or "jocoseriously," to paraphrase another of Atkinson's influences: the Joyce of Ulysses and Finnegans Wake. In her third novel, much of Atkinson's humor is incidental, even parenthetical. (We are told in passing, for example, that Effie's dissertation is called "Henry James: Man or Maze?") She is at her best when introducing her eccentric characters, such as the elderly Professor Cousins, who is sometimes lucid, sometimes not. "As with anyone in the department," Effie explains, "it wasn't always easy to distinguish between the two states. The university's strict laws of tenure dictated that he had to be dead at least three months before he could be removed from behind his desk." Professor Cousins, like the author, enjoys word games along the order of those in Alice in Wonderland, and Atkinson's use of Scottish idiom comes to function as a sort of word game. She also brings in a few killjoys (a militant feminist, a militant Christian, a literary theorist) to complicate an already loopy narrative and to spike the punch.

Janice smelt of piety and coal tar soap. She had recently become a Christian, a neophyte of a student Christian fellowship whose members roamed the corridors of Airlie, Belmont and Chalmers Halls looking for likely converts (the afraid, the alone, the abandoned) and those who needed to use the Bible to fill in the spaces where their personalities should have been.

As Emotionally Weird develops, Atkinson relies more and more on the postmodern gag of characters commenting on the unfolding action. There is no telling how she finally draws these disparate threads onto a single spool, but in the end, even the slightest subplots are neatly tied up and the most transient characters accounted for. --Regina Marler --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

When Atkinson's first novel, Behind the Scenes at the Museum, beat out Salman Rushdie's The Moor's Last Sigh for the 1995 Whitbread Book of the Year Award, a controversy in the British press ensued. But this imaginative and unconventional writer strikes back at her detractors in her third book (after Human Croquet), skewering the academic literary establishment with understated but spot-on humor, while telling an imaginative tale both outrageously funny and poignantly human: Tom Robbins meets John Irving. Euphemia "Effie" Andrews, a 21-year-old Scot and student at the University of Dundee, arrives at a remote, barren Scottish island to swap life stories with her mother, Nora. Effie comes with a slew of tales about the free-love and druggy chaos of her early 1970s college life, and also armed with questions for Nora, determined to learn the truth about their family history. That is, if Nora is her mother, and if any of the stories either of them tell are true ("My mother is a virgin"). These are unreliable narrators in top form, keeping readers guessing delightedly throughout. The author uses different fonts to intertwine several narratives, including hilarious entries from Effie's, and her classmates', novels-in-progress, while these excerpts are interrupted by Nora's snide commentary. Effie's academic hijinks may be a bit exaggerated, since she's slogging along on a paper on George Eliot while living with occasional electricity and a continually stoned boyfriend. But truly alarming things are happening in Dundee: someone is killing residents of a retirement home, and a strange woman is following Effie. While the narrators' constant backtalk can be tiresome, Atkinson's clever and sophisticated prose preserves the voices' sparkling energy. Readers may guess the family secret before it is revealed, but that doesn't steal any thunder from the unsettling and utterly original denouement. (June)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 343 pages
• Publisher: Picador; 1st edition (July 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 031227999X
• ISBN-13: 978-0312279998
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (51 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #107,408 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Kate Atkinson's first novel, Behind the Scenes at the Museum, won the Whitbread (now Costa) Book of the Year Award. She has been a critically acclaimed, bestselling author ever since, with over one million copies of her books in print in the United States.

She is the author of a collection of short stories, Not the End of the World, and of the novels Human Croquet, Emotionally Weird, Case Histories, One Good Turn, When Will There Be Good News?, and Started Early, Took My Dog. Case Histories, which introduced her readers to Jackson Brodie, former police inspector turned private investigator, was made into a television series starring Jason Isaacs.

Kate Atkinson lives in Edinburgh.

Amazon Author Rankbeta 

(What's this?)

#84 Overall (See top 100 authors)

#5 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Historical

#5 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Historical

#7 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Literary

#10 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Literary Fiction

#19 in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Mystery

#5 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Historical

#5 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Historical

#7 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Literary

#10 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Literary Fiction

#19 in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Mystery

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Don't let the first 20 or so pages fool you July 29, 2003

By jmz VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

I will admit, it was really hard to continue reading Emotionally Weird by Kate Atkinson. You're immediately thrown into several stories -- stories that are told within stories and stories that aren't. It's hard to figure out what's going on when, who is who, why you're even reading the book. But believe me, you must continue reading...it's worth it in every way.

I think the parts that I love the most are when Effie's "mother" Nora interrupts her story telling of her experience at the University. Nora's quips are perfect ("does this story have a plot?," "There are too many characters and I can't keep them straight," and "No! Don't kill of Olivia!") for how I felt as a reader. Effie's story (which is a huge chunk of the book) is really funny. Atkinson holds a dry wit that just continues to roll with each page.

And the end...yes, there is an ending, and yes, everything pulls together more coherently than you could ever imagine. I won't say anything more about the ending. If your fear is that you won't be able to get through Emotionally Weird, then just take heed that it will all make sense in the end and you should just keep plugging along.

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Hilarious, offbeat, thought-provoking December 25, 2002

By Gwen A Orel

Format:Paperback

To say this is a book in which on a deserted Scottish island Effie and her mother tell stories about their lives is to give a completely wrong impression of this book...

it's more like Italo Calvino in the way it plays with a bunch of different narratives. Most of the book is 20-year old Effie's story.. it's 1972, and she's an unmotivated student at the University of Dundee. Her chapters, "Chez Bob" (Bob is her Star Trek-obsessed boyfriend she's too lethargic to leave) are hilarious... the descriptions of her friends and the nonsensical situations and conversations will be familiar to anyone who's ever been to college, anywhere. The excerpts from tutorials (we'd call them seminars" she half-heartedly participates on are exact and funny. They also provide an excuse to show excerpts from the mystery novel she's writing, the fantasy a friend is writing and a mysterious novel that seems to have supernatural powers taht one of the professors is working on. Every time we get to an excerpt, the font changes, which is a clear and delightful device

For all that the book plays with reality, it still remains clear and not mystified and annoying. Every now and then we return to the remote Scottish island (the font is more stark there, too) and we get little glimpses of Nora's story as Effie tries to get the story of her birth... Nora is a Virgin and as the book goes on we realize Nora is not her mother... also in Effie's story she is being followed by a mysterious woman...

all of these threads are tied together brilliantly by the end in a conclusion that is logical and satisfying.

We also get a brief epilogue set in 1999, largely excerpts from the now-published writings of Effie and her friends, which is short and funny.

I laughed out loud at the description of one of the college parties. Atkinson has a brilliant ear for dialogue and her character descriptions are sharp and clear. I feel as if I've *been* to Dundee in 1972! (The student demonstrations and their escalations, and a feminist meeting attended by a doddering, gallant male professor, are particularly wonderful).

Don't be put off by some of the lukewarm reviews here-- this is one of the more original books I've read in a while!

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Emotionally manipulative May 30, 2000

By Daniel

Format:Hardcover

When this book came out in the UK in May I was so excited, I even bought it in hardback. Kate Atkinson is that rare writer - one who knows as much about writing as how to write, and she shows this to advantage in an extremely clever book. She veers on the self-indulgent with her myriad storylines interweaving in and out of this book, but her charm and great good humour shine throughout; and I greatly regretted that we did not see more of her lead character's gloriously campy and wickedly parody-like detective novel. The word games and language play which characterise Atkinson are not so subtle as they were in "Human Croquet" (which still remains her best novel) but they still provide a source of much enjoyment and delight; amusing us as much as they entertain the brain and make the reader think. She is one of our greatest modern writers, and even if Emotionally Weird is not as good as her last two books (Human Croquet, and Behind The Scenes at the Museum, which latter is much praised by people and described as "The perfect novel") , and is, undeniably, flawed in some ways - The symbolism and development of Atkinson's storyline, with the private eye and the yellow dog, is not as clear cut as one would wish for. However - and this is the truly magical thing - with an Atkinson novel, you can re-read it and everything suddenly becomes different. Words dropped here and there become surprisingly important, dialogue leaps into focus, things you ignored suddenly force themselves into your consciousness a second time around. The book grips the brain as much as it thrills and mystifies, entertains and satisfies. Not only is it extremely funny, extremely baffling, and extremely intelligent, but it is extreme in its own right. The plot lays itself open to ridicule, but so strong is Atkinson's power and skill that we never think "Goodness, what a daft plot!". The portraits of the characters are marvellously precise, true to life and bitingly witty. Thankyou, Kate, for understanding that characters are very important in a novel. A mediocre plot can be pulled off with strong characters, a faintly weird plot is a success. Kate, you may not have quite parallelled the superlative wealth of your second book, but you're still a damn good authoress. And the exciting thing is - there is obviously room for improvement! This is not a bad thing when someone writes as well as she does. What I am saying to you is that Kate Atkinson will go on to write even better - though it hardly seems possible - than she does now. Her style will develop, and when she is at her most matured, she will be one of the literary greats of her day. I heartily recommend the purchase of this book, but would suggest strongly that you buy her other books as well, and start with Human Croquet - which is more accessible and immediately understandable. Having read that, you can then embark upon this book - and you will be all the better for it. I promise you.