Description
Emotionally Weird is a comic novel by Kate Atkinson about Effie and her mother, Nora, who retreat to a weather-beaten island off the coast of Scotland and begin telling each other stories about their lives. Nora avoids revealing the truth about Effie’s father, while Effie recounts increasingly questionable versions of her time at university, where she is involved with Bob, an unmotivated student whose obsession with Klingons is matched only by his reluctance to leave his bed.
As their stories unfold, strange events begin to surround them. Effie wonders whether she is being followed, elderly people appear to be dying under suspicious circumstances, and a mysterious yellow dog keeps turning up. Atkinson uses the shifting stories and comic misunderstandings to play with language, narrative and the often unreliable ways people make sense of their own lives.
A good choice for readers who enjoy literary comedy, unconventional narratives, family secrets, eccentric characters and novels that play with the boundaries between truth and storytelling.
