The Petty Details Of So-and-so's Life (2003) - Plot & Excerpts
I picked up a reading copy of this a few months ago because I heard Camilla Gibb was a hot rising star in the Canadian literary scene. I liked this novel a lot, it kept me absorbed and the characters were real, but there was a bit lacking. Usually I tend to gravitate to novels with extremely strong characters, poetic or metaphoric writing styles, and authors who try to explore one (or two?) concepts exheedingly well. Gibb has tried to achieve this, and I recognize her writing skill, but she seems to have not reached her stride, yet. I am looking forward to more of her novels. There's bound to be one amazing one coming soon.This novel is about a pair of siblings who grow up in Niagara Falls, Canada, in a household where their parents hate each other...leading to their mother finding herself floating in the bottom of a glass and their father "creating" in the back shed until he disappears entirely leaving a bucket of hair. Blue, the young boy, grows up smoking dope and seeing his father everywhere, trying to find himself and his father. He eventually finds love instead and becomes a cultural trendsetter in the guise of a tatoo artist. Emma constantly remakes herself, first as the deathbunny Oksana Vladivostok, then as an upwardly-mobile archeologist with a passion for dinosaur bones, then finally as herself, emerging like one of Blue's butterflies out of a (to her) surprising relationship. Along the way Blue and Emma find a few very good friends who pull them out of their absence from life, and there is a cathartic ending...we hope.
This book explores themes familiar in literature - sibling closeness, alcoholism, mental illness and shoddy parenting - but it has a highly original feel, mainly down to its constant inventiveness, and the brisk way in which the story is told. The author cleverly selects only the interesting elements of her characters' lives, and discards the mundane. The writing is lively and frequently humorous (the incident with the police and the furry pig was a particular case in point). I was keen to know what would happen, and you can't ask for much more. If there was a bum note, I would say that the constant reminders, in between events, of the reasons behind the characters' actions (it's all down to their upbringing etc etc) and the gazing at eachother's navels occasionally felt overly didactic, which is not to say that it was badly written. Oh, and the section where two pre-school children are sent unaccompanied on a bus gave me a bit of a jolt. Is this legal in Canada? I'd be tempted not to try it all the same.
What do You think about The Petty Details Of So-and-so's Life (2003)?
In her second book, Gibb once again explores the dynamics of a family with parents who should never have been. This time the father is abusive in a verbal way that echoes through the years. He doesn't take any kind of care of his family. He actually resents their ties to him. The mother's true colours first come to light when she plunks five-year-old Emma and four-year-old Blue on a bus to Niagara Falls. The siblings rely on each other and their evolving dynamic is the most intriguing theme of this story. Each reacts in different ways to the tragedy of their upbringing. Emma seeks constantly to become someone else, while Blue attempts to fix things. Heartbreaking, at times hilarious, this family saga will stay with me for a long time.
—Ann
