Customer Reviews

Sights Unseen

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I am just sorry that more people didn't enjoy the book as much as I did. Actually, I should not say enjoy...the book hit too close to home to be so enjoyable, as I, too, am a manic depressive. I am 19 years old and even though I have no children of my own, I do know, when my mind allows me to think clearly, the pain and hardship my condition causes my family. I think Gibbons portrayed a person with such an illness in a true and poignant way, as she herself suffers from the condition. It is not an easy life to live and she illustrates that in the book. Some thought the woman's episodes hilarious,however, to live the life is to know, and it's not funny at all. It is a matter of getting up every day and not knowing how you will feel or what you will do. It is a matter of hurting those you love unintentionally on a daily basis, hurting yourself on a daily basis, and never knowing where your life is going. Gibbons's plot may not have seemed as "page-turning" as some would have liked, but the illness, though unpredictable, is not the stuff for an action-adventure novel, except to those who live with it. The book is wonderful, and true to life, and worth every penny.

SIGHTS UNSEEN, a short novel by Kaye Gibbons, tells the story of a woman named Maggie Barnes with bipolar disorder, told through her daughter, Hattie's, eyes. Hattie, writing from the perspective of the woman she's become, relates the events that happened to her mother, specifically those events that took place during Hattie's twelfth year, in 1963, when Maggie, between bouts of sex-crazed mania and suicidal depression, ran into a woman with a car and was sent to Duke for electroconvulsive shock therapy that was meant "cure" her.

The strength of the novel is in Kaye Gibbons' sensitivity to the severity of manic depression and what it's like for someone who has to live with bouts of extreme joy and severe sadness. However, if you're looking for some kind of insight from Hattie in this novel, you won't find it. Hattie is a completely impersonal narrator; it's easy to forget that she is Maggie's daughter. She seems so disconnected from the story and the events that are happening. The reader gets no insight into Hattie's hopes or fears--we don't know how she feels about growing up without a reliable mother; it's almost as if Gibbons deliberately skirts Hattie's feelings in order to talk more about her mother's antics. There is a brief suggestion that Hattie desperately desires her mother's attention, but it is not fully developed, and is therefore unbelievable.

The novel has potential--but, because of Hattie's failure as a narrator, it falls short of the goal Gibbons probably imagined it would attain.

As a woman who is fiercely close with my mother, my heart broke repeatedly for Hattie. She wanted the most basic thing every child craves: Love, and she spends her whole young life trying to understand her mother's illness and in the process she comes to understand herself and later her own children. Hattie is wise beyond her years at times, other times she is like a baby you just want to pick up and carry away from the situation.

Hattie is funny and tragic and careful and complex all at once. She longs for what many of us take for granted--a mother to laugh with, shop with, talk about boys with. This was the first book I read in a long time that actually made me cry.

Kaye Gibbons is a master of telling stories that are so real you think you are the main character. EVERY word she writes is necessary to the story. I have read every one of her books and I think she is excellent. It's easy reading too. I read Sights Unseen in a day.

After reading Sights Unseen I appreciate my mother and the life she gave up for me that much more. In fact, after I read it I wrapped it up and gave it her with a note of thanks on the inside front cover.

In the past few years Southern Fiction has exploded into the mainstream. Recognition for Southern writers has risen to new heights and readers, especially Southern readers, are the beneficiaries of some of the best fiction anywhere. Contemporary Southern Fiction has a unique and timeless perspective. One of the most promising new Southern writers is Kaye Gibbons. Ms Gibbons is a shining light and her novels are exceptional. Like the characters she so carefully and precisely creates, her style is compassionate and spirited. She offers an especially unique and fresh portrayal of women in the South. Her most recent novel, Sights Unseen is a haunting story, dealing with the difficult problem of manic depression. Retrospectly told from the point of view of Hattie, the daughter of a manic depressive, this story focuses on one family's struggle for normality. Hattie longs for a mother who will read bedtime stories and bake cookies, but her reality is austere. Young, confused, and excluded Hattie makes painful attempts to understand and accept her mother's illness. While her family tries to protect her, Hattie finds herself the objective center of the situation. While the rest of her family seems immersed in her mother's illness, Hattie watches and absorbs. It is as if she is ghost of sorts, ever-present but uninvolved. Hattie tries desperately to belong. Her nurse and her brother are her only viable connections to the family. However, it is a relationship with her mother for which Hattie longs. Hattie's mother is incapable of such a relationship and as a result Hattie finds that passing her mother in the hall is like passing a stranger on the street. Amazingly, this is a story about depression without being depressing. This novel is a must read for mothers and daughters. In the same way many mothers and daughters flocked to the theater together to see Steel Magnolias, they should read this book together. Undoubtedly, Kaye Gibbons intended to illuminate the ups and downs of all mother-daughter relationships. It is a special bond that even the most extreme circumstances can not break. In Sights Unseen, Ms. Gibbons gracefully confronts a subject that would be difficult for most writers. It is perhaps most remarkable that Ms. Gibbons is able to write about this subject despite her own personal struggle with severe depression. This is Ms. Gibbons' fifth novel. All her novels place women as the central characters, and these women are clearly Southern. What is wonderful about her characters is they are extraordinary in an ordinary way. They are not tragic heroines. They are real women with real problems and real triumphs. They strike an unusual balance between wisdom and imprudence, strength and frailty. Ms. Gibbons' characters are like women we know; they are not Scarlett O'Hara. Ms. Gibbons' portrayal of Southern women deserves praise and recognition. Other books by Kaye Gibbons include: Ellen Foster, A Virtuous Woman, A Cure for Dreams, and Charms for the Easy Life.

I'll read anything written by or about Kaye Gibbons. She's quintessentially southern, lyrical, insightful, etc.
And she suffers herself from bipolar disorder, I've read, so this book must have been written from the bottom of her gut. It's hard to discern where reality gives way to fiction and vice versa.
Heart-wrenching, redeeming, and definitely worth the read.

I am a big Kaye Gibbons fan, but I found this book to be a little weaker than the rest. The character development (usually a Gibbons strength) was not great. The book rambled a little bit. All that being said, "mediocre" Kaye Gibbons writing is still phenomenal by any standard.

Great book. Kaye Gibbons is such a good story teller. She can take what could be a difficult topic and makes it very readable and warm, and you don't feel like you've been given a guilt trip or been hit over the head with an agenda, like with some other authors. I've enjoyed all of her books.

Kaye Gibbons has long been one of my favorite writers. Whether it was reading about a young Ellen Foster dealing with her abusive father or a woman who prepares meals for her husband to eat after she dies, it is as if Ms. Gibbons characters have become cherished friends. Unfortunately, as I read the story of the Barnes family about their manic depressive mother and wife, these characters never really got under my skin. Perhaps it is my failing that I found it diffcult to read about this subject matter and that I never felt I came to know the characters but this book left me hungering for another Gibbons' title I can sink my teeth into.

What makes a book 5 stars...maybe a theme that captures an era or an event in time that could stand on its own. Kaye Gibbons comes close to weaving such a story. The characters are beautifully developed and never do they overreach. Instead we have a small story that speaks twenty volumes of the forces that shape children. Maybe more importantly we are left knowing eight characters and the thirsts that are at the core of their lives. Kaye Gibbons is truly gifted in drawing the reader into complexity with a simplicity that seemingly requires little writing effort. Don't be fooled. It's almost as if, at completion, you don't even know what hit you, only that you have been hit.

The character development was poor and insufficient, almost like the author tried to disguise the identity of them. As far as what was there, it was accurate, from my experience with people suffering from a bi-polar disorder but I wouldn't look here for any great insights. Worth a read if you don't have anything else handy because it is a fast read, but I've read short stories that were better thought out.