Tamai Kobayashi

(Fiction, Canadian, Literary)

From an Amazon reviewer:

“Bookish, [Japanese-Canadian] eight-year-old Egg Murakami lives on her family’s ostrich farm in rural, southern Alberta. It is the end of the summer, 1974. Since her brother’s death, her Mama curls inside a whiskey bottle and her Papa shuts himself in the barn. Big sister Kathy — in love with her best friend, Stacey — reinvents the bedtime stories she reads to Egg so that they end in a happily ever after.

Confronted by bullies and the perplexing quirks of the adults around her, Egg watches, a quiet witness to her unraveling family as she tries to find her place in a bewildering world.”

Don’t read this if you require happy endings.

4 stars… (meer)

Kobayashi has written an excellent story about eight-year old Egg Murakami. Her family is not quite dysfunctional but not a perfect family unit since her brother's death. Mama Murakami drinks to excess and Papa has moved into the barn on their family ostrich farm. And big sister Kathy is in love with her best friend. The story deals with Egg's day-to-day exploration of what life is suppose to be like and what it really is.

http://wp.me/p46Ewj-CV… (meer)