One Foot Wrong (Paperback)

~ (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Australian actor and young-adult writer Laguna (Too Loud Lily) delivers a grim, creepy, powerful first-person narrative about a direly neglected child whose knowledge of the world is severely circumscribed by her fanatically Christian parents. Told entirely in the solipsistic point of view of Hester, the only child of paranoid, abusive parents, the novel pursues the girl's deeply troubling relationship with them and their bizarre world view. Begrudged her difficult birth, Hester is routinely hung, Christ-like, from her arms in the basement by her depressed mother, who sequesters the young girl in their shared cabin, her only book The Abridged Picture Bible. Hester's brief foray to school, thanks to the intervention of the town authorities, proves eye-opening (she makes her first friend, Mary), but ultimately disastrous. Molested by her father through her adolescence, Hester is finally institutionalized when her parents can no longer control her. Laguna's rendering of Hester's fragile mental state is sympathetic and touching, especially through imagined dialogue with inanimate objects and in the friendship Hester makes with Mary, and then in the institution, with Norma. A truly haunting tale that readers won't soon forget, from a compelling, original voice. (Aug.)
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Review

'Unique and absolutely hypnotic' Emily Maguire, author of Taming the Beast --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Other Press (August 18, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590513169
• ISBN-13: 978-1590513163
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #980,256 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Strange and stunning, October 27, 2009

By	RhodeIsland 1969 (New Jersey) - See all my reviews

First, I want to offer a quote from the novel: "I took the orange piece from Mary's hand. I put it in my mouth and waited for the end of freedom. Orange water jumped through the air as I chewed....The bell rang and we walked back into the schoolroom swallowing orange." The style throughout this compelling novel is like that--lyrical, confounding, at times disturbing, but always consistent. I haven't read anything better than this--the first novel from Australian writer Laguna--in years. I hope more is coming from this wonderful writer.

4.0 out of 5 stars Sweetly Disturbing, October 8, 2009

By	Yolanda S. Bean (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews

This was a dark and strange book. In the midst of the horror of Hester's life, her narration was at times oddly, incongruously, beautiful. The limitations of the narrator left some rather important gaps in the story, but in the end, there was surprisingly satisfying closure. It was certainly a unique book and one that almost begs for discussion.