Customer Reviews

Icarus Girl

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Eight-year-old Jessamy Harrison, the daughter of a Nigerian mother and a British father, sometimes spends five or more hours hiding motionless in the family's linen closet, attempting to find some sort of "fragile peace." Prone to uncontrollable screaming fits, both at home and at school, she also has high fevers and panic attacks, and often talks to herself. Struggling with obvious emotional problems, Jess is a bright but lonely child, with no friends, a mother who spends most of her time writing, and a father who is away most of the day.

When her mother takes her to Nigeria during a school vacation, she sets in motion a series of events which ultimately leave Jess struggling to hold on to her selfhood. While visiting her Yoruban grandfather, Jess explores an abandoned building and discovers a strange girl her own age secretly living there. Titiola, whom Jess calls TillyTilly, becomes her first true friend, and though Jess explores the countryside with her, no one in her family ever sees her.

When Jess returns to school in England, her friend TillyTilly follows. Jess is delighted at first, but TillyTilly begins to monopolize her time, deliberately breaking things in the house, "getting" people who make Jess unhappy, and causing accidents. Jess's parents become alarmed at the havoc, especially when Jess insists that it is caused by her mysterious, unseen friend. Then TillyTilly reveals a family secret, and the battle begins in earnest for possession of Jess's soul.

Nigerian author Helen Oyeymi, who wrote this book when she was eighteen, incorporates aspects of Nigerian culture when Jess returns to Nigeria on a second visit. Oyeymi keeps the action fast-paced and creates considerable suspense as Jess, through TillyTilly, becomes physically dangerous to those around her. Only her Yoruban grandfather, who believes in magic and traditional ceremonies, seems to have the resources necessary to exorcize the demon.

The novel moves along smartly, developing tension and excitement by recreating many of the nightmares of childhood, though the author's simple approach to complex problems may reflect her youth. Jess, an eight-year-old, is far too sophisticated about TillyTilly and too articulate about her fears to inspire much reader empathy, and she never feels quite realistic, especially when she herself questions whether TillyTilly really exists. Both her ultimate battle with TillyTilly and the conclusion of the novel feel artificial. Still, Oyeyemi has created a psychological horror novel which dares to be different, incorporating a clash of cultures and parallels with the Icarus legend in this memorable debut novel. (3.5 stars) n Mary Whipple

According to the book jacket, author Helen Oyeyemi was born in Nigeria, lived in London since the age of four, and completed THE ICARUS GIRL before age nineteen. Given her wealth of life experience, she naturally wrote about what she knew: an eight-year-old girl of mixed English/Nigerian heritage, daughter of a biracial couple, whose life changes irremediably subsequent to her first visit to her African homeland. Drawing upon mythical elements of Nigerian spiritualism and the Yoruba language, Ms. Oyeyemi has written an African inspired version of Tom Tryon's 1971 book, THE OTHER, a psychological thriller with elements of gothic horror.

While Ms. Oyeyemi offers a hopeful new literary voice, her first book is a mixed bag. Her descriptions of the main character, eight-year-old Jessamy, and Jess's confusions about growing up, dealing with her parents, and coping with her uncontrollable compulsions and the sheer surreality of her spirit companion TillyTilly are believable. However, most of her supporting cast is remarkably flat, most egregiously Jess's Nigerian mother Sarah Harrison and her white, English father Daniel. Well intentioned in their introduction of Jess to her mother's African family, Sarah and Daniel revert in England to being among the most singularly distant, disinterested, and obtuse parents ever written into fictional life. Following their return from Nigeria to England, Jessamy nosedives into various states of hysteria and violence that evoke little more from her mother than ever more concerted efforts at her own children's writing; she gets even less response from her father. Jess's teachers, her classmates, and her psychologist, Dr. McKenzie, are nearly as flat, as are most of her African family. The only partial exceptions are the underused grandfather Gbenga Oyegbebi, and Dr. McKenzie's daughter, Siobahn (nicknamed Shivs, as in home-fashioned prison blades, or perhaps short for shivers?).

THE ICARUS GIRL mixes shocking revelations about Jess's birth with nightmarish accounts of her interactions with the seemingly omniscient TillyTilly (whose true nature readers will quickly guess), eerie foretellings, and unlikely coincidences. Characters feel waves of cold in TillyTilly's presence (THE SIXTH SENSE with Bruce Willis, anyone?), icy touches and self-closing doors. The overall effect is part Stephen King horror story, part exploration of the pre-adolescent psyche in a culturally mixed but not particularly nurturing family setting, and part Carlos Castenada flights into ethereal spirit realms.

Ms. Oyeyemi puts forth an intriguing and psychologically-conflicted voice in Jessamy. At her best, the author delivers her story in captivating prose images that effectively portray her young protagonist's loneliness, confusion, feelings of separateness and abnormality, and even her ambivalence toward TillyTilly as both prospective friend and possible threat. In the end, however, THE ICARUS GIRL resolves itself through an easily anticipated, quasi-religious transformation that asserts unconvincingly the superiority of African naturalism (hence the repeated invocation of Jessamy's African name, Wuraola, meaning gold) over the Western rationalism of psychology. Intriguing to a point, the book ultimately delivers something less than it promises. Nonetheless, an interesting read for anyone seeking a fresh literary voice.

Eight-year old Jessamy Harrison has never been like the other girls at her school in Bromley, England. Daughter of a Nigerian mother and a British father, Jessamy is gifted, difficult, even peculiar, given to screaming tantrums and strange, febrile fevers. Jess spends hours alone, reading and drawing, seemingly content in her own company. Early in the novel, the family visits Nigeria, where a bevy of aunts, uncles and cousins await and, most significantly, her maternal grandfather, who believes in the ancestral ways but is a devout Christian. It is on this visit that the solitary Jessamy meets a new friend in an abandoned building, Titiola, whom she calls TillyTilly. Jess is delighted to have a playmate, drawn into the intimacies of young girls sharing secrets. Titiola's true identity is unclear until the family returns home, where she appears once more.

TillyTilly knows all of Jess's secrets, the girls at school who ridicule her difference and lack of social skills, anyone who disturbs or makes Jess angry. But eventually Jessamy realizes that no one can see her new friend; she is invisible. It is at this point that the novel shifts from fiction to fable. Is this girl a figment of Jessamy's imagination, a panacea for her emotional turmoil, or is there a darker source, in the roots of African folklore, where spirits have the power to enter the physical realm? As the disturbing incidents increase and Jess realizes she can't control TillyTilly's appearance or her actions, fear presides, those closest to Jessamy affected by the sinister presence of this sister-friend who does or doesn't really exist. The tale beings to make sense when Jessamy's parents take her to a therapist. It is through the girl's response to Doctor McKenzie that the real image of this tormented child takes shape.

It is TillyTilly who tells the shocking secret of Jessamy's birth: she was born a twin, but her sister did not survive. TillyTilly yearns to take the lost sister's place, but all is twisted around her own identity as the missing half of another twin. TillyTilly wields her power, controlling Jess, whose fright grows in proportion to escalating events. As a twin, Jessamy is a child of three worlds: "this one, the spirit world and the Bush, which is a sort of wilderness of the mind", according to Jessamy's mother. In a desperate struggle for dominance, Jess returns to Nigeria with her family, there to confront her confusion. It is here that the battle for Jessamy's soul is engaged, a fight waged between two realities, the physical and the spiritual, the living and the dead.

The novel was written by Oyeyemi before her nineteenth birthday, capturing both the innocence and the deviousness of an unhappy child who cannot find a comfortable place to inhabit, a place where conflicting emotions are allowed to coexist; instead, folklore mixes with reality, the half-life of the spirits begging recognition. The Icarus Girl is imbued with the language of otherness, a fairy tale in which anything is possible, ancestral rituals in Nigeria, lost twins and imaginary friends part of the warp and weft of the fragile fabric of Jessamy's existence. Luan Gaines/2005.

Helen Oyeyemi was born in Nigeria and moved to London when she was four. She wrote "The Icarus Girl" over a seven month period while at school, studying for her A-Levels. By the time she got her results, she'd signed a two-book deal worth an alleged £400,000.

Jess Harrison is an eight-year old girl, an only child and nearly determined to be a loner. She seems nearly to be afraid of making friends, avoids going outside to play as much as possible and keeps her thoughts to herself. She also reads a great deal - "Little Women" is a great favourite and she is also very partial to Shakespeare. However, Jess often suffers from panic attacks and the occasional strange fever.

Jess' parents, Daniel and Sarah, met at university. Daniel was born and raised in England, though Sarah is Nigerian and only came to England to study medicine. She promptly switched courses to study English Literature and is now a successful writer. Fifteen years after she left Nigeria, Sarah is now returning to Nigeria for the first time with her husband and daughter. Although there are some awkward moments for Sarah, meeting the Nigerian side of the family also proves difficult for Jess. While the relations she meet include aunts, uncles and cousins, her grandfather proves to be very much the dominant character : he `rules' the compound in which the family live. It's clear he disapproves of Sarah's decision to switch from medicine to English Literature and her decision to remain in England. In fact, he doesn't seem to entirely approve of Daniel either. However, there is a bond between grandfather and granddaughter - he clearly loves her and she seeks her approval. Although Jess knows she has a Yoruba name - Wuraola - her grandfather is the first person to call her by that name. Not being called Jess, however, is something that initially confuses and scares her a little.

The compound in which the family lives was built in the 1870s by Jess' great-grandfather. Jess' grandfather currently lives at the centre of the compound, with an old and deserted building called the Boys' Quarters located at the back of it. It had once been home to the compound's servants, though it has now been lying empty for many years and now isn't fit for habitation. The trouble for Jess starts when she realises that someone is, in fact, living in the Boys' Quarters - apparently without anyone else in the compound being aware of it. The cuckoo is a young Yoruba girl called Titiola who becomes Jess' first ever friend. As Jess has trouble with the pronunciation, she calls her new companion Tilly-Tilly. While there are a few minor skirmishes in Nigeria, the trouble only really begins when Jess returns to England - and Tilly-Tilly miraculously arrives shortly afterwards. Her friend's arrival brings a few changes in Jess, and she learns a bit more about her life.

This is a fantastic book, and one that I can't recommend highly enough. I have a great deal of admiration for Helen Oyeyemi, completing a book like this in her most difficult school year - and still achieving the grades to gain a place at Cambridge. I'm very much looking forward to her second novel.

i just have to give major respect to ms oyeyemi for attempting to tackle such a complicated realm - physically, mentally, emotionally - with words, and using a child's body and psyche as the entrance and exit through these three worlds. as a young writer myself, it both inspires me and has me working even harder, since ms oyeyemi is only 3 years younger than myself and has already made a huge mark and raised the standard on what's expected of upcoming authors these days.

it was very hard for me to get into the book (and i was given a bound galley, uncorrected proof - so maybe in the final product the language is a bit more polished, the story a teeny bit more concrete) but not because of the writing style. i had to do two things: really open myself up to the idea of living in three worlds and take myself back to being an 8-year old girl.

very difficult. and so i am very grateful i didn't give up on this book - i really did want to see what was coming from a young, black woman when it seems so much of what's being hyped these days are stories from young white socialites (and socialite wannabes) and was satisfied with how it ended.

While this debut novel is certainly an impressive achievement for an 18-year-old writer, it's hard to escape the conclusion that purely on its own merits as a book, it's rather flat. Apparently partially inspired by the author's own troubles as a child, the story centers on the psychological problems of 8-year-old Jessamy. The lonely only child of a Nigerian woman and English father, she lives in the suburbs of Kent, England, and we meet her for the first time as she hides in a linen closet. The set-up is pure gothic lit, little Jessamy has been experiencing unexplainable fevers and tantrums and is considered "weird" at school. Events are set in motion when her family takes a trip to Nigeria to visit her mother's relatives. There she meets a local girl her own age named Titiola (aka TillyTilly) whom she befriends and who shows up on Jess's doorstep after they return to England. But is TillyTilly real?

Oyeyemi is being deliberately ambiguous with the material, but as TillyTilly becomes more and more a part of Jess's life, and goads her into acting out, the reader is forced to make a decision as to how to read the increasingly sinister events. One option for the reader is to believe that TillyTilly is purely imaginary and a construct of Jess's damaged psyche, and that all that follows is Jess's doing. Alternatively, one can read the story as being more gothicly supernatural -- TillyTilly is real, and can affect the physical world. In my book club, people split down the middle on how they took the story, but for me, the latter interpretation is the only way to get any pleasure from the story. Especially as we learn that Jess had a twin who died at childbirth and that in her mother's native Yoruba culture twins have a very special resonance and power. The reader is given glimpses and impressions of the importance of this cultural element, but it's never really spelled out in enough detail. Oyeyemi attempts to build suspense and tension by slowly raising the stakes, but the increasingly strange events seem to carry less consequence than they merit, and it generally just feels like more and more of the same until an awkward and rushed climax in Nigeria.

There are a number of other problems with the book. Although the author does a very nice job capturing the turbulent emotional world of a powerless 8-year-old girl, Jessamy is also far too insightful and learned at times (she's reading Hamlet, writing haikus, discoursing on Coleridge, etc.). Her parents are very poorly characterized, very flat and insubstantial, disappearing for large swathes of the story and remarkably inept and clueless when they are around. Given the fairly extreme and escalating behavior Jess exhibits, they express neither the concern nor urgency one might expect. Her therapist is equally flat, and it seems somewhat unlikely that his protocol would include letting clients roam around his house with his daughter (who is about the only other character with any life, a kind of bold and fearless type of little girl). Jess's Nigerian relatives are all standard-issue kindly, fun people, except for her grandfather, who has the potential to be interesting, but isn't given enough time to be fully developed. Ultimately, unless one is deeply into the mystical/gothic elements, the book is rather flat. The juxtaposition of Nigerian and English cultures doesn't really amount to very much (certainly not when compared to other "cross-cultural" novels, the most obvious example being Zadie Smith's "White Teeth"). The prose is fine, nothing special (granted, impressive for an 18-year-old), and there's really no reason I would recommend this to anyone. I wouldn't necessarily dissuade anyone from reading it, but there's just nothing particularly compelling about it.

Eight-year old Jessamy Harrison has never been like the other girls at her school in Bromley, England. Daughter of a Nigerian mother and a British father, Jessamy is gifted, difficult, even peculiar, given to screaming tantrums and strange, febrile fevers. Jess spends hours alone, reading and drawing, seemingly content in her own company. Early in the novel, the family visits Nigeria, where a bevy of aunts, uncles and cousins await and, most significantly, her maternal grandfather, who believes in the ancestral ways but is a devout Christian. It is on this visit that the solitary Jessamy meets a new friend in an abandoned building, Titiola, whom she calls TillyTilly. Jess is delighted to have a playmate, drawn into the intimacies of young girls sharing secrets. Titiola's true identity is unclear until the family returns home, where she appears once more.

TillyTilly knows all of Jess's secrets, the girls at school who ridicule her difference and lack of social skills, anyone who disturbs or makes Jess angry. But eventually Jessamy realizes that no one can see her new friend; she is invisible. It is at this point that the novel shifts from fiction to fable. Is this girl a figment of Jessamy's imagination, a panacea for her emotional turmoil, or is there a darker source, in the roots of African folklore, where spirits have the power to enter the physical realm? As the disturbing incidents increase and Jess realizes she can't control TillyTilly's appearance or her actions, fear presides, those closest to Jessamy affected by the sinister presence of this sister-friend who does or doesn't really exist. The tale beings to make sense when Jessamy's parents take her to a therapist. It is through the girl's response to Doctor McKenzie that the real image of this tormented child takes shape.

It is TillyTilly who tells the shocking secret of Jessamy's birth: she was born a twin, but her sister did not survive. TillyTilly yearns to take the lost sister's place, but all is twisted around her own identity as the missing half of another twin. TillyTilly wields her power, controlling Jess, whose fright grows in proportion to escalating events. As a twin, Jessamy is a child of three worlds: "this one, the spirit world and the Bush, which is a sort of wilderness of the mind", according to Jessamy's mother. In a desperate struggle for dominance, Jess returns to Nigeria with her family, there to confront her confusion. It is here that the battle for Jessamy's soul is engaged, a fight waged between two realities, the physical and the spiritual, the living and the dead.

The novel was written by Oyeyemi before her nineteenth birthday, capturing both the innocence and the deviousness of an unhappy child who cannot find a comfortable place to inhabit, a place where conflicting emotions are allowed to coexist; instead, folklore mixes with reality, the half-life of the spirits begging recognition. The Icarus Girl is imbued with the language of otherness, a fairy tale in which anything is possible, ancestral rituals in Nigeria, lost twins and imaginary friends part of the warp and weft of the fragile fabric of Jessamy's existence. Luan Gaines/2006.

Oyeyemi deftly captures the heartache of a lonely child while portraying the now-familiar story of one who is caught between two cultures with astonishing originality and clarity. Underpinning her 8 year old character's sense of alienation is a haunting and memorable tinge of magic realism and Nigerian folklore. I loved the ambiguous ending -- and at a closer read, I was surprised to discover that it wasn't vague at all.

In her debut novel "Icarus girl" Helen Oyeyemi, a young British writer of Nigerian origin, centers on an eight-year-old girl, Jessamy Harrison. Jessamy is a daughter of Sara, a strong-willed writer from Nigeria, and Daniel, a gentle, withdrawn man. The novel begins when Jessamy hides in a cupboard, submerged in the world of her imagination. The opening cupboard scene is a good prelude to what will happen next - the atmosphere is set in this moment.

Jessamy's mother offers her a possibility of a holiday in Nigeria, and the whole family travels there to meet Sara's father, a real "pater familias", and Sara's siblings. The novel, although told in the third person, is narrated from Jessamy's viewpoint and only her thoughts and feelings are known; the other people are seen as perceived by Jessamy, a sensitive, insecure child with a vivid imagination. I liked this literary technique a lot, because the novel told from a child's perspective is always mysterious and complicated, as is the world in a child's eyes.

In Nigeria, Jessamy's insecurity grows as she tries to please everyone and find her way among the strong personalities of her aunts, and to understand and love her grandfather. Luckily, or so it seems at the beginning, she befriends a little girl - Titiola (or TillyTilly, as Jessamy calls her). They have lots of fun together, breaking many boundaries and daring to do things Jessamy could only dream of, so when the family goes back to England, Jessamy is sad to lose her new friend... But she is surprised to see her in her neighborhood and the friendship resumes. TillyTilly, however, grows more and more possessive of Jessamy, threatens to "get" people who are either unfriendly or too friendly, and, worse, the threats come true... Jessamy learns of the family secret that may lie at the heart of her internal conflict and, despite the help and despair of her parents and the nice psychiatrist, she refuses to let the friendship with TillyTilly go away.

The novel intriguingly weaves together myths and reality, magic and reason, creating a rich internal world of a girl who does not know herself. Instead of making sense of reality, though, Jessamy sinks deeper and deeper into the darkness and the unknown. The ending is blurred and confusing - I was lost and frustrated when I finished reading, not knowing how to interpret the final events. I am not sure if the author's intention was to leave the readers in a state of confusion comparable to Jessamy's, or if Oyeyemi really could not find a better solution, lacking the experience? Perhaps her next novel would be an answer to this question.

This book was very different than expected. The story took an eerie turn after just a few chapters and remained that way until the very end. I felt uneasy throughout most of the story but simply could not put the book down. The author was not only able to capture the language and understanding of a young child but she was also able to infuse aspects of Nigerian culture throughout the text. Although I was unfmiliar with Nigerian culture, I was able to follow most of the descriptions and references within the text. The ending could have been fleshed out a little more but ultimatley it was along the lines of what I was expecting.