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Gingerbread

A Novel

Audiobook
2 of 2 copies available
2 of 2 copies available

"Exhilarating...A wildly imagined, head-spinning, deeply intelligent novel." - The New York Times Book Review

"[W]ildly inventive…[Helen Oyeyemi's] prose is not without its playful bite." –Vogue 

The prize-winning, bestselling author of Boy Snow Bird, What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours, and Peaces returns with a bewitching and imaginative novel
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Influenced by the mysterious place gingerbread holds in classic children's stories, beloved novelist Helen Oyeyemi invites readers into a delightful tale of a surprising family legacy, in which the inheritance is a recipe. 
Perdita Lee may appear to be your average British schoolgirl; Harriet Lee may seem just a working mother trying to penetrate the school social hierarchy; but there are signs that they might not be as normal as they think they are. For one thing, they share a gold-painted, seventh-floor walk-up apartment with some surprisingly verbal vegetation. And then there's the gingerbread they make. Londoners may find themselves able to take or leave it, but it's very popular in Druhástrana, the far-away (or, according to many sources, non-existent) land of Harriet Lee's early youth. The world's truest lover of the Lee family gingerbread, however, is Harriet's charismatic childhood friend Gretel Kercheval —a figure who seems to have had a hand in everything (good or bad) that has happened to Harriet since they met. 
Decades later, when teenaged Perdita sets out to find her mother's long-lost friend, it prompts a new telling of Harriet's story. As the book follows the Lees through encounters with jealousy, ambition, family grudges, work, wealth, and real estate, gingerbread seems to be the one thing that reliably holds a constant value. Endlessly surprising and satisfying, written with Helen Oyeyemi's inimitable style and imagination, it is a true feast for the reader.

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    • AudioFile Magazine
      With crisp, youthful intonations, author Helen Oyeyemi narrates her bizarre coming-of-age tale, unfurling the history of two families, two worlds, and many batches of warm, intoxicating gingerbread. Combining the everyday and the extraordinary, Oyeyemi travels in time between the daily indelicacies of Harriet Lee's adult life and her strange adolescence in Druh�strana, a realm that cannot be found on most maps. As Harriet reveals her strange childhood and legacy to her teenage daughter, Perdita, listeners experience a curious melding of the surreal and the modern, in which themes of greed, dishonesty, loyalty, and familial ties continually resurface. Oyeyemi's languid pacing and layered characterizations add to the otherworldly nature of this story, invoking feelings of disorientation and loss. Ideal for fans of folktales and complex families. K.S.B. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

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  • English

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