Rosemary thinks she endured the worst fate of all: She was forced to deny part of her essential self and 'just' act human, starting in kindergarten to refrain from biting, and from jumping on tables and desks when playing.

Lowell grows up to be a militant animal-rights activist wanted by the FBI her mother descends into depression her father drinks. What Rosemary does chronicle, however, is how her family was shattered by Fern's leave-taking. She's only reluctantly agreed to talk about her family because as she ultimately admits, she's the only adult child of the family 'not currently in a cage.'įern disappears when Rosemary is 5, and we don't learn what happened to her until the end of the novel. Rosemary wants us to meet her parents her twin sister, Fern and her older brother, Lowell slowly, in flashbacks.

That's because if you heard the beginning right away, you'd get the wrong idea about one of her family members. As Rosemary tells us, she's learned to 'kip the beginning and tart in the middle' of her story. Our narrator here is named Rosemary Cooke, and she's in college when the novel opens. You should read We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves only if you're willing to be upset and probably permanently haunted. Both novels share a curiosity about the weird, gray areas in our definition of what it means to be 'human,' and both are saturated with despair.įowler's novel is superb, but I've already warned a couple of sensitive animal lovers I know away from it. In fact, all the time I was reading We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, I kept thinking of Kazuo Ishiguro's 2005 novel Never Let Me Go, a tragic, scientific romance that deals with cloning. Fowler's new novel, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, is a different literary creature altogether - still witty but emotionally and intellectually riskier, and more indebted to Fowler's other books that toy with the sci-fi genre. If you know Karen Joy Fowler's writing only from her clever, 2004 best-seller, The Jane Austen Book Club, you're in for a shock. Your purchase helps support NPR programming. Close overlay Buy Featured Book Title We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves Author Karen Joy Fowler

We are completely beside ourselves