My mom was 16 and my father was only 17, and they were kind of forced to marry each other. My parents were quite young when they had me. I lived in housing schemes - I think you call them projects over here - and there was a lot of poverty around me, a lot of unemployment, because I was brought up during Thatcherism. Lisa O'Donnell: I suppose the story has always been inside me.
Jill Owens: What was the genesis of The Death of Bees?
The Herald (Scotland) raves, " The Death of Bees is compelling stuff, engaging the emotions from the first page and quickly becoming almost impossible to put down." Though those opening sentences set the scene for the darkness of the subject matter, they don't necessarily convey how funny the book is, nor how realistic and beautifully written the girls' voices are. Struggling to keep their parents' death a secret as well as pay the bills, go to school, and maintain some semblance of a normal life, Marnie and Nelly cope in very different ways. Neither of them were beloved." Those dramatic first lines of Lisa O'Donnell's debut novel, The Death of Bees, launch the story of two sisters, 15-year-old Marnie and 12-year-old Nelly, who, in alternating voices (along with the voice of their neighbor Lennie), describe their lives growing up very poor in Scotland after burying their parents, Izzy and Gene. Today I buried my parents in the backyard. Those making more favourable comments said that it was an enjoyable, even hilarious page-turner."Today is Christmas Eve. Criticisms were that the story was unrealistic and badly researched, also that Nelly was completely unbelievable. Opinions were divided between those who thought it was an ultimately unsatisfying beach read and those who enjoyed it. We read this in May 2016, when eight members attended the meeting.
Despite his kindness, the two girls are haunted by the ghosts of their past whilst the precarious balance of the present is threatened by a long-lost grandfather. The sisters’ lies are initially believed but the truth is uncovered by their elderly neighbour, who takes them in and attempts to care for them. On discovering the dead bodies of their parents, the two sisters decide against reporting the deaths to the police (and so bringing in Social Services) so instead bury the bodies themselves – rather inexpertly, as it later turns out.
The story is told through multiple viewpoints, and focuses on how the death of two drug addicts affects their daughters Marnie and Nelly and the people around them. Wikipediatells us both that this is the author’s debut novel (published in 2013), also that it won the 2013 Commonwealth Book Prize.
0 kommentar(er)
