What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours
by:
Helen Oyeyemi (author)
From the award-winning author of Boy, Snow, Bird and Mr. Fox comes an enchanting collection of intertwined stories. Playful, ambitious, and exquisitely imagined, What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours is cleverly built around the idea of keys, literal and metaphorical. The key to a house, the key to a...
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From the award-winning author of Boy, Snow, Bird and Mr. Fox comes an enchanting collection of intertwined stories. Playful, ambitious, and exquisitely imagined, What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours is cleverly built around the idea of keys, literal and metaphorical. The key to a house, the key to a heart, the key to a secret—Oyeyemi’s keys not only unlock elements of her characters’ lives, they promise further labyrinths on the other side. In “Books and Roses” one special key opens a library, a garden, and clues to at least two lovers’ fates. In “Is Your Blood as Red as This?” an unlikely key opens the heart of a student at a puppeteering school. “‘Sorry’ Doesn’t Sweeten Her Tea” involves a “house of locks,” where doors can be closed only with a key—with surprising, unobservable developments. And in “If a Book Is Locked There’s Probably a Good Reason for That Don't You Think,” a key keeps a mystical diary locked (for good reason). Oyeyemi’s tales span multiple times and landscapes as they tease boundaries between coexisting realities. Is a key a gate, a gift, or an invitation? What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours captivates as it explores the many possible answers.
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Format: Hardcover
ISBN:
9781594634635 (1594634637)
ASIN: 1594634637
Publish date: 2016-03-08
Publisher: Riverhead Books
Pages no: 336
Edition language: English
I’ve been a fan of Helen Oyeyemi since I discovered Mr. Fox a couple of years ago. She has a gift for turning stories inside out so that you can see their guts and ponder how they work, while also dropping bits of truth here and there. That said, her short story collection What is Not Yours is Not Y...
This is a lovely book of short stories: they are often surreal and occasionally baffling, but nonetheless beautiful. Oyeyemi’s free-flowing imagination results in a wholly original collection of stories: one never knows what will happen next, or what byways the story might take us down before the en...