The Effect of Living Backwards

by Heidi Julavits

Book Overview

Following her acclaimed debut, The Mineral Palace, Heidi Julavits presents a quirky, compelling novel about two sisters, a bizarre event, and the elusive nature of truth--a New York Times Notable Book.

Does Alice really hate her sister, or is that love? Was she really enrolled in grad school, or was that an elaborate hoax? Is this really a hijacking, or is it merely the effect of living backwards?

"Heidi Julavits--no stranger to edgy, dark topics--takes liberties with conventional notions of hijacking and hostages, weaving humor in a zingy and brainy spectrum...If you can take successive shots of wit with gulps of moral inquisition, then this fine book is for you."--Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0425198170
• ISBN13: 9780425198179
• Release Date: September 2004
• Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
• Length: 368 Pages
• Weight: 0.68 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.2" x 8.0"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Alice's Adventures in Absurdity.

On one level, Heidi Julavits' critically-acclaimed 2003 novel, The Effect of Living Backwards, may be read as a story of two sisters, Alice and Edith, who are flying to Morocco for Edith's wedding, when their flight is hijacked by a blind man named Bruno, forcing passengers to consider whether they would sacrifice their own lives to save another. However, with its eccentric "shame stories," the novel may also be read as a black comedy told from its narrator Alice's wildly-skewed perspective. Her reliability as a narrator is always suspect. Julavits takes the title for her novel from Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass, and then sets out, it seems, to write an absurdist, Pynchonesque novel along the lines of Gravity's Rainbow or Against the Day to depict life in a post 9/11 world. It mostly works for me. I'm envious of Julavits' talent, and I'm looking forward to reading another one of her novels. I say be patient with Julavits' smart writing style and just enjoy the adventurous ride through her Wonderland of a novel. G. Merritt

Smart, Original Thriller

I LOVED this book! And I'm not even into the "thrill" genre. But this smart, sassy novel was so much more. Terrorists, on Flight 919 from Casablanca to Melilla. Alice and her sister Edith, who was enroute to get married, got on board, along with some other passengers who tell the reader, in first person, their "Shame Stories". The "Shame Stories" actually come from Alice and Edith but are SO connected in every way. The actual mystery begins with the terrorists themselves. Were they terrorists or just old fashioned hi-jackers? Was one of them really blind? What were their demands? There was a sense of unreality about it, even as you turn the pages to see if the whole weird trip was a hi-jacking or role playing or a dream or a metaphor. Wonderfully Smart Book. A Pleasure To Read

It makes one a little giddy at first ...

" 'That's the effect of living backwards,' the [Red] Queen said kindly: 'it always makes one a little giddy at first.' " is from "Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There," so I had to pick up this book. There was a fear on my part that assigning the names Alice and Edith to the main characters of this novel was a cheap attempt to gain the readership of those of us who love the Liddel sisters and the young mathematician who gave them immortality. There was also a fear that "Living Backwards" would take on the cheap parlor-trick quality that Martin Amis gave it in "Time's Arrow." Both fears were totally unfounded. Not only is this a totally original comment on the themes of Lewis Carrol, but its picture of sibling rivalry is deep, and it's the best book that I've read on terrorism and its tangled roots and motivations (as opposed to reductionist screeds about evildoers and gooddoers).Maybe I'm just a sucker for Dodgsoniana, but I loved this book. I checked "The Mineral Palace" out of the library as soon as I returned this one to make sure that Ms. Julavits has the talent I feel she does after this, my first, exposure to her writing.

a case-study comedy

Heidi Julavits (the author) creates a cast of memorable characters by sharing their "shame stories" as sidebars to the engaging main plot...a post "Big Terrible" hijacking by a plane steward and a blind terrorist...or is it all staged? The rivalrous/devoted relationship of sisters Alice and Edith make the story believable despite its unlikely circumstances. I don't have a sister; this book makes me feel equally cheated and grateful that I don't.

smart, fun, energetic, and unlike anything else

I'm blown away by Julavits's imagination, word play, and insight into sisterly relationships. This is an important book for anyone who loves literature. Julavits takes risks in her writing that few other writers do.