A Surprise in the Mailbox (Bear in the Big Blue House)

by Christopher Priest

Book Overview

British paperback edition. First novel by the author of "The Prestige." A tale of a future world where the Amazon forests have been cleared, the population has been decimated by a major war, and where... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0671773674
• ISBN13: 9780671773670
• Release Date: July 2002
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's
• Weight: 0.25 lbs.

Customer Reviews

5 stars or 1 star - it's that kind of book

Not so much a book as a maze. The main character, after having a really bad few months, goes to ground in a cottage in the English countryside. There he starts writing an autobiography which, for other reasons, he sets in an alternative post global warming UK. Sadly for the reader expecting a straightforward examination of someone having a breakdown the alternate version of our hero is also writing a fictional autobiography. The two narratives merge - not in a "parallel worlds" way, but more as though the two versions of the main character are actually writing each other into being. If you've ever seen that picture of a cube that can be perceived as either coming out of the page or going into it, depending on how you look at it, you might get an idea of how disorientating this book is. Perhaps more of a closing in spiral than a maze. It's structurally complex, but also achingly sad - the main theme seems to be loss - of family, of location and in the end of actual self. A desparately lonely book - it appeared, scared all the proper reviewers stiff and vanished.