Visible amazement: A novel [Hardcover]

Gale Zoe Garnett (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: 1999

Meet Roanne Campbell - definitely not your ordinary teenage girl, a fascinating study in contrasts. Equal parts bold seductress and wide eyed innocent, smart-assed teenager and wizened sage, she is an outlandish, charismatic, and wholly inspired creation, longing for escape from her mother's shadow.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

After she and her beautiful, free-spirited single mother fall for the same man, Roanne Chappell, the feisty 14-year-old narrator of Garnett's exhilarating debut novel, realizes that she needs to leave home for the summer to gain a little breathing space. Heading south from Yachats, Ore., to California, she stops to visit famous cartoonist D.D.A., a kind, gay French-Canadian dwarf she looks to as a mentor. This first destination is unusual enough, but Roanne's travels take her to increasingly strange places, from the surreal home of her troubled friend Gabe, the son of two washed-up western stars-turned-evangelists, to beautiful, cold Malibu Colony, home of the cartoonist's gigantic and brooding brother Pascal, a talented photographer, and Gilbey Tarr, a gorgeous, openhearted, alcoholic 16-year-old nouveau riche heiress soon to become Roanne's best friend. Roanne's hunger-- her sheer adolescent greed--for life and love and connection and experience bring her some wonderful memories and relationships, but also a share of grown-up pain. Some readers may be taken aback by the frank discussion of her precocious relationships with a number of older men and her over-the-top adventures, but her character's sheer energy and intelligence make a little open-mindedness and suspension of disbelief worthwhile. The novel is told in the first person, in Roanne's own dialect, a wonderful combination of Canadian vernacular and resonant polysyllabics. At the close of this cunningly styled tale, a series of tragic happenings leaves Garnett's charming heroine--and the reader--with the bittersweet taste of life lessons honestly learned. Agent, Jan Whitford. (Mar. 7)Forecast: Though not as accomplished as Mona Simpson's Anywhere but Here or Brian Hall's Saskiad, Visible Amazement will appeal to fans of similar unconventional teen-coming-of-age novels, and handselling to them could get cash registers ringing.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Only 14 years old, Roanne Chappell is fully developed and sexually curious. When her relationship with her mother is shattered after they are both seduced by the same man, Roanne takes off to think things over. Beginning by landing unannounced at the door of a cartoonist who turns out to be a gay French dwarf, she ricochets into a series of bizarre encounters. Her five-month journey includes brushes with born-again movie stars, kind servants, rock stars and groupies, and a lover 28 years her senior. Revealed in a series of diary entries, Roanne's teen voice and adult perceptions carry the story along and provide ballast for the more outrageous and implausible aspects of her adventure (how many 14-year-olds end up with $10,000 contracts for album cover designs?). This debut novel by a New Zealand-born actress and writer now living in Canada is recommended for collections with an emphasis on women's fiction and first novels. Jan Blodgett, Davidson Coll. Lib., NC
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 285 pages
• Publisher: Distributed by General Distribution Services; First Edition edition (1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0773731881
• ISBN-13: 978-0773731882
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,773,661 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gale Zoe Garnett is a brilliant writer, February 24, 2001

By 

H. L. L. (CA, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Visible Amazement (Hardcover)

I still have an essay, which I've saved from many years back, that Gale Zoe Garnett wrote for the TORONTO STAR newspaper, about Gordon Liddy. She wrote it when she was a distinguished member of the judges panel at The Toronto Film Festival, which also happened to be the same year that Gordon Liddy announced to the world that he was an actor. I believe Mr. Liddy had recently been released from jail where he'd served time for doing illegal things for his boss, President Nixon...Even thinking about this devilishly tongue in cheek article makes me shake with laughter and I have been a fan of her writing ever since. I've read Ms. Garnett's article, about Gordon Liddy, the actor, to many people over the years and have thrilled to the satisfying shrieks of laughter it elicited.

In her first novel, VISIBLE AMAZEMENT, my admiration for Ms. Garnett's writing increases. Her heroine, thirteen year old Roanne, is someone I totally identify with, and someone anyone can identify with; 'I think when you move around a lot and don't relate really well with kids your own age, books can be an important alternative to suicide.' (VISIBLE AMAZEMENT pg 23) Don't let Roanne's age fool you--this is a woman in the making, no question about it, with all the attendant confusion about sex and desire and 'relationships.' Roanne's journey made me laugh out loud and often. I laughed so hard I cried. Ms. Garnett has a gift for describing the absolutely ridiculous in all of us.

I am an avid reader of detective novels. I adore detective fiction and most especially, Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe series. Rex Stout is a globally recognized master of mystery and what I like best about his writing style is his breeziness and casualness. He tosses off barbs and wit like a Dorothy Parker. Ms. Garnett posesses the same skill. She can write the way Cary Grant could act. Effortlessly and without a care in the world and yet, she can break our hearts as well as make us laugh. This is writing at it's best. Nothing heavy handed here--all wit and therefore highly skilled.

You'd do yourself a great service by curling up with this book, (a few hours will get you through it as it's only a couple of hundred pages,) and letting Roanne's journey envelop you for a while until you come to realize you're also thinking of your own life's journey right along with hers. Ms. Garnett brings to life the beautiful California coastline, a cartoon drawing dwarf, a dashing French photographer, a beautiful Malibu princess, a rolicking, British rock band, and a time in America in the late 60's before MTV, computers and Nike, 'pre-corporate' as Mike Meyers has said, where everything in life seemed new and exciting. She has beautifully drawn Roanne's fragile, teenage time of transition which she calls '"on the point"...When you're not where you were and you don't know yet where you're going to be instead.' (page 75, VISIBLE AMAZEMENT)

This book is for anyone who is on any kind of a journey--and that's just about everybody I know.

Bravo, Ms. Garnett, on this brilliant debut. Please keep 'em coming.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars visibly AMAZING, March 23, 2003

By 

"readergirl97" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Visible Amazement (Hardcover)

I begged my dad to buy me this book because of the cover and the review on the back that called Gale Zoe Garnett, the book's author, "a female Salinger." While Roanne is not exactly Holden Caulfield in a bra, I could totally relate to what she was going through.

Roanne Chappell is a 14-year old Canadian girl who feels suffocated by her artist mother. She wants to be known by something other than "Del's daughter." She hungers for a world of her own, an existence entirely separate from her mother's. Roanne runs away to the home of D.D.A.(Didi), a renowned cartoonist whom she idolizes, and who turns out to be a lovable, gay, French dwarf.

As Roanne continues her adventure, travelling to California and even swinging by Mexico, Roanne meets quite a number of unusual characters, including Pascal, Didi's photographer brother, Gabe, an old friend from "clown school," and Gilbey Tarr, a gorgeous, Southern "teenage goddess from outer space," who soon becomes Roanne's best friend. These people all help Roanne learn important life lessons, as well as find the wonderful individual hidden from beneath her mother's shadow.

Roanne is unlike any character ever written. I think it is wrong to liken her to Holden Caulfield, for she does not possess Holden's jaded view of the world. Roanne truly is "visibly amazed" by everything she sees.

Although the book's ending was quite abrupt, and the period in which the book is set was not clearly illustrated, I still consider this one of my favorite books. Like Roanne, I often feel the need to run away and forge a world that I can truly call my own. Roanne is not afraid to explore unknown territories, such as her sexuality. You'll be glad the book is written in first person, for Roanne's original blend of coined expressions and Canadian jargon will have you laughing out loud.

Read the book. It will truly amaze you.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Worth more than any of us are paying, lol., November 6, 2004

By 

May Tyler (Canada) - See all my reviews

I was lucky enough to find this book at a clearance sale for $2, new. I figured it would bring a couple of hours of amusement, but was completely unprepared for the depth of feeling this quirky piece of literary achievement would evoke in me. Garnett is a fabulous author. Her young character, Roanne, is one of the most refreshing and fully developed teenage characters I've ever read, which is saying something. She is a startling combination of sexual maturity, intelligence, and wide-eyed innocence. For those of us who know what it is like to struggle with life and relationships--and who doesn't?--Roanne's thoughts and adventures are like a balm for the soul. If you know a young woman with more than a few eccentricities, it would almost be cruel not to let her know about Visible Amazement. And if you feel as if your world has lost its magic, I suggest you purchase this book, curl up with something sweet and hot to drink, and allow yourself to see things through Roanne's eyes. ;)