The Extra Large Medium [Paperback]

Helen Slavin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 10, 2007

In this delightful debut novel, Helen Slavin takes the ghost story into a new dimension. Ever since she was a child, Annie Colville has been talking to the dead. She knows they’re dead because for some reason they’re always dressed in chocolate brown. But Annie’s grown up now, and things are getting serious. Especially after she falls for and marries Evan Bees. It’s hard enough to lose someone you love; but what if you know they could come back to you? And they just . . . don’t? During her long wait for her missing husband to come back to her, in chocolate brown or not, Annie searches through her mother’s vast collection of lovers for the other missing man in her life — her father — and struggles with the questions her gift asks of her. Quirky, irreverent, moving and a little bit spooky,The Extra Large Mediumwill charm you completely — even as it’s raising the hairs on the back of your neck.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Annie Colville sees dead people, and in British television and scriptwriter Slavin's debut, the dead wear chocolate brown while inhabiting the "Waiting Room of Heaven World," which overlaps with the everyday "Living Room World" that the rest of us see. The ghosts reach out to Annie to enlist her in tidying up unfinished—and mundane as often as unconventional—business: which niece should get the Wedgwood teapot, which romantic path a lesbian daughter should follow. Annie also has problems of her own: her husband, Evan Bees, disappeared seven years ago, and though he's assumed dead, Annie hasn't seen him among the cocoa-clad (the countdown to when Annie can have him declared legally dead provides the book's time line); her quest to discover which of her mother's many lovers is her father is leaden with disappointment; and some ghosts prove to be more haunting than others. Annie endears herself to the reader, in part because her gift exhausts her more than it elevates her, and also because she embodies a genuine purity of heart that, in lesser hands, would be cloying. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Bridget Jones meets ghost stories in this light comic read by debut British author Slavin. Annie Coville is born with an unusual gift: she can see dead people, souls stuck wandering the earth, stranded between worlds and always clad in drab chocolate brown. She escapes childhood relatively unscathed, save the time spent as unwitting psychic for her aunt's friends, paired with eerie haunting incidents. Upon adulthood she finds solace at the university, working among the bones and ghosts of Roman soldiers in the archaeology lab. It is there that she falls in love with Evan Bees, and they are happy until he disappears. If he was killed in an accident, his soul would have found her, so where is he? Annie is unable to give up on her true love, and while she waits, she decides to start helping lost ghosts, whether their business is trivial or not. Complete with chatty prose, the requisite tea shop, and spooky clues, Slavin's delightful novel takes the reader happily all the way to the ever after. Emily Cook
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Grove Press, Black Cat (May 10, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802170323
• ISBN-13: 978-0802170323
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.7 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,728,109 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars From the Edges to the Center and back to the Edges, May 13, 2007

By 

D. Murphy "Donnie" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Extra Large Medium (Paperback)

This is a "single sitting" type of book, the kind that draws you in and holds you firm until you are done. This is not because the writing is especially good (it IS well done but does seem somewhat crafted) but because author Slavin does a comfortable job of "unwrapping" her characters.

Despite utilizing what is quickly becoming an overused literary and cinematic device (dead people), this book does not feel as though the reader is exploring deeply trodden ground.

There is good evolution for many of the characters and the "heroine/lost soul" that is Annie wobbles determinedly from the edges to the center to the edges and drags the reader along with her.

It does have some good twists and turns and ends up being a most satisfying read that I would recommend.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A witty and original ghost story, June 27, 2007

By 

Lynn Harnett (Marathon, FL USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Extra Large Medium (Paperback)

British author Slavin's witty and rather melancholy debut posits some truly terrifying ghosts - drab souls who pester the narrator with the unfinished detritus of dull lives. "Lost cats, squabbles over wills, Crown Derby coffee sets and leather pouffes are about the limits of it....I exist as a kind of customer service department, running a stream of endless errands just to keep these people quiet."

As a small child Annie Colville is shadowed by Mrs. Berry, a former owner of their house whose rigid standards of cleanliness are in a perpetual state of outrage. As an adult the dead crowd in on Annie, and you can't really blame her for never quite being in control.

Then Annie falls in love and marries, a helpmeet at last. But before we can get to know him Evan Bees disappears and doesn't reappear, though Annie knows he could, living or dead. She waits, drifts and flounders, has a desultory love affair, looks for her unknown father, and employs various strategies to put her "gift" to good use, with mixed results.

Other voices alternate with Annie's, first her big-hearted mother who could never help the one person who needed it most, then an archaeologist who becomes interested in Annie from afar.

Slavin's comic flashes are quirky and original, and Annie's exhaustion makes her real. But her inability to cope wears on the reader and gives a disjointed quality to the narrative. Still, Slavin's colorful writing and the ever-present hope of something better draw the reader on to a surprising conclusion (that does, however, raise some more questions).

5.0 out of 5 stars superb!, November 4, 2011

By 

smitty - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Extra Large Medium (Paperback)

Loved it! Absolutely loved it. Dry humor and stark honesty abound when describing the characters. This book took over my time for 2.5 days. I could not put it down. Unusual and highly enjoyable. Truly an unexpected gem.