Borderline is a book that works on so many levels that it is almost unclassifiable. It is a genuinely warm, tender, humorous coming of age story while at the same time being a novel that is smart, informative and illuminating in the fields of genetics, autism as an increasingly proliferating condition, fast food and obesity as national crises, and the overemphasis of pill-popping for invented childhood and adult disorders.
Robin Farber lives in a psychiatric institution. In her mind, she creates the world by looking at it: a quantum theory-world where matter pops in and out of existence as she observes it, a world where she is God. And, because the reader of "Banana Kiss" must take a long look through her schizophrenic eyes, this is our world, too, a world where the disembodied voices Robin hears are more real than the people who stand in front of her. Robin's world is populated by a rich variety of characters, both real and imaginary. Her father, a sailor who died when she was a baby, shows up in her head whenever he's on leave. Derek, her charming, lovelorn friend, goes from mania to depression and back several times a day. There's her insufferable sister Melissa, who stole her boyfriend, Max. And, of course, there's Dr Mankiewicz, or Whitecoat', the long-suffering therapist who, Robin tells us, thinks there are some things that are real, and some things that are not, and that he knows better than anyone else.' Finally, there is Robin herself, whose confused, psychotic, funny, compassionate voice is one you are not likely to forget.
With more of her life behind her than ahead, Margaret Braverman, a physicist teaching at a small college, cannot help but regret the things she never quite got right. Most important among them was the tragic ending of her romance with her brilliant colleague Frank, something she has never gotten over. And, of course, it would be glorious to get even with that mean-spirited, conceited, womanizing Caleb Winter. After years of experimentation in the back room of her lab, Margaret has finally built a time machine. The key, she discovered, is in teleporting not the body but the mind. And so, at 5:03 p.m. on May 3, 2012, Margaret teleports her mind to her 1987 self. She is able to see and hear but cannot move a muscle. Will she be able to change the future?
DAMAGED PEOPLE is not your mother's family saga.Like THE CORRECTIONS, it is literary, edgy and character-based. Like WE ARE NOT OURSELVES, it is a moving multi-generational novel. Unlike them, however, DAMAGED PEOPLE has a premise founded in cutting-edge science: that powerful environmental conditions routinely leave imprints in our genetic material, short-circuiting evolution and passing along new traits in a single generation.Based on a true story, DAMAGED PEOPLE tells of three generations of a New York City family wounded by a single tragedy that ricochets from person to person and generation to generation:The young father, Joe, who, out of his mind with grief when his wife dies unexpectedly from a blood clot after giving birth, cannot bear to touch his newborn son.The thoughtless daytime nurse he hired to care for the baby Russ, who leaves him alone and crying while she goes out.The young boy himself, who grows into a titan of finance, wildly successful in business but ruthless and paranoid with people.Then there's Russ' only son, Jack, who is overcome with an anxiety he cannot understand or resolve, but one that seems only to have been passed on from his father's early experience.Finally, there's Joe's brilliant sister Grace, a science teacher in a progressive girls' school, who increasingly suspects that the psychological mark left upon her beloved nephew is imprinted not only in his psyche but in his genes.
With more of her life behind her than ahead, Margaret Braverman, a physicist teaching at a small college, cannot help but regret the things she never quite got right. Most important among them was the tragic ending of her romance with her brilliant colleague Frank, something she has never gotten over. And, of course, it would be glorious to get even with that mean-spirited, conceited, womanizing Caleb Winter. After years of experimentation in the back room of her lab, Margaret has finally built a time machine. The key, she discovered, is in teleporting not the body but the mind. And so, at 5:03 p.m. on May 3, 2012, Margaret teleports her mind to her 1987 self. She is able to see and hear but cannot move a muscle. Will she be able to change the future?
Robin Farber lives in a psychiatric institution. In her mind, she creates the world by looking at it: a quantum theory-world where matter pops in and out of existence as she observes it, a world where she is God. And, because the reader of "Banana Kiss" must take a long look through her schizophrenic eyes, this is our world, too, a world where the disembodied voices Robin hears are more real than the people who stand in front of her. Robin's world is populated by a rich variety of characters, both real and imaginary. Her father, a sailor who died when she was a baby, shows up in her head whenever he's on leave. Derek, her charming, lovelorn friend, goes from mania to depression and back several times a day. There's her insufferable sister Melissa, who stole her boyfriend, Max. And, of course, there's Dr Mankiewicz, or Whitecoat', the long-suffering therapist who, Robin tells us, thinks there are some things that are real, and some things that are not, and that he knows better than anyone else.' Finally, there is Robin herself, whose confused, psychotic, funny, compassionate voice is one you are not likely to forget.
Borderline is a book that works on so many levels that it is almost unclassifiable. It is a genuinely warm, tender, humorous coming of age story while at the same time being a novel that is smart, informative and illuminating in the fields of genetics, autism as an increasingly proliferating condition, fast food and obesity as national crises, and the overemphasis of pill-popping for invented childhood and adult disorders.
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