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Black Boxes
 
 

Black Boxes (Hardcover)

by Caroline Smailes (Author)
4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
RRP: £12.99
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Product details

  • Hardcover: 504 pages
  • Publisher: The Friday Project Limited (15 Sep 2008)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 1906321701
  • ISBN-13: 978-1906321703
  • Product Dimensions: 22 x 13.8 x 4.4 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 594,800 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Product Description

Review
Praise for In Search of Adam: 'There is little in the way of relief in this harrowing first novel, but Smailes' sensitivity towards her subjects -- and the poetry of her writing -- carry the story.' Financial Times 'In Search of Adam by Caroline Smailes...a stunning insight into the disturbed mind of a girl living in the North-East. It has re-defined what writing can do for the reader -- it can change the way you look at people.' Terry Deary 'Fantastic. She's a natural. It's confident, harrowing, uplifting and what's more it's set in the North East!' Paul Magrs

Product Description
Julie Myerson meets Ian McEwan in this gripping novel of family breakdown. Ana Lewis is trapped by her own expectations. Her intense relationship with fellow student Alex begins to crack beyond repair when she falls pregnant, and his subsequent withdrawal, emotionally and sexually are hard for Ana to bear. Eventually, following the birth of Pip and then Davie, Alex leaves Ana to a life of question and blame. Locked in her room for much of the time she woefully neglects her children, preferring instead to replay scenes from her life over and over, fighting the urge to blink for fear it should dissipate the memories. Told within the context of two black boxes, one Ana's and one Pip's, the story reveals the key factors that have contributed to this catastrophic breakdown of life. In Black Box 01 we meet Ana as she begins to deconstruct her life. She rails against Alex and his inability to love her, or to put her ahead of his domineering mother. Black Box 02 is Pip's diary which details in a schoolgirl terms the neglect that both Pip and Davie have suffered. Pip talks of her mother's deterioration, lack of cleanliness and of her mother's obsessions.Pip and Davie communicate through finger sign language, as their mother demands silence. Davie retreats into his own world, permanently soiled and communicating only by sign, while Pip, fat and desperate, sneaks out of the house at night to have sex with a boy who hates her. Pip and Davie exist in parallel, with only Ana's bedroom door separating her from them. She does not want to see them. They are the present and Ana chooses to live in a past, continually raking over the ashes of a relationship that was never really hers. Accomplished and affecting, Caroline Smailes weaves together a catastrophic tale of mismatched lives.

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Customer Reviews

12 Reviews
5 star:
 (10)
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Average Customer Review
4.8 out of 5 stars (12 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Heartbreakingly beautiful, 2 Oct 2008
By B (Geordie Watcher) (North East England) - See all my reviews
Black Boxes is a story focusing on a woman called Ana and her family. It's told as though the reader is investigating the wreckage of Ana's life with Alex, trying to figure out where and how it all went wrong. Ana's story is inside Black Box one and Pip's diary is in Black Box two.

Ana is all the more heartbreaking for being very aware of all the mistakes she has made over the years. She is picking over the ruins of her life with Alex, trying to blink away some memories and hold onto others; trying to find out where she went wrong, aware that if she doesn't find them soon she may never discover the truth. In some ways her story reads like a play; with silences and sound effects. They give depth to what she is saying, and sometimes seem to say things that Ana doesn't seem able to give voice to.

Pip has to take care of herself and Davie, her younger brother, because Ana has withdrawn from them both. Her mam can't bear to hear them speak, so they learn to spell words with their fingers. Some words are spelled out in Pip's diary; I had to flip backwards and forwards to the key provided in the front and back covers, giving some idea of how strained communication must be - not just between Pip and Davie, but between all the characters in this story.

Ana, Pip and Davie are beautifully drawn characters. I cared deeply about their fate. The final words, spelled out in signs at the end of the book, almost broke my heart.

This is an excellent, beautifully written, gut-wrenching book. Read it now.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Black Boxes, 13 Nov 2008
A Black Box is an event recording device and in this book it is used to record the thoughts of Ana and her daughter Pip. Ana is plunged into depression and through the book withdraws from life and caring for her children. Ana's story is told as if she is holding a conversation with Alex, her ex, in her head. Pip's story is told in her diary.

I found the book gripping and disturbing in places, but towards the end I found myself becoming impatient that the story did not move on quicker and I think that was deliberate on the author's part to hold the reader in the decreasing cycle of Ana's thoughts. I thought the section of the book written as Pip was excellent, the despair of Pip trying to cope with her life came across really strongly and emotionally.



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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Describing The Indescribable, 27 Oct 2008
By Ms. H. Kara (England) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
I was lying in bed last night trying to think up the perfect publisher's description for Black Boxes. You know the kind of thing - X meets Y; the way they like to categorise books. The trouble is, this one is so hard to categorise, because Caroline Smailes doesn't deal in labels or stereotypes. The best I came up with was 'this book exists where Jane Austen meets disaster movie scripts'. Which, of course, she doesn't, so let me try to explain.

This is the second of Smailes' books I've read, and the Austen comparison occurred to me with the first (In Search Of Adam), because Smailes focuses on domestic minutiae and uses language with precision. But the minutiae she selects for her unflinching gaze are not the nice kind that Austen chose. Scabs, eating fishfinger sandwiches with tomato ketchup to the point of nausea, childhood stress incontinence, peeling paint, body odour - these are the kind of things you'll find in Black Boxes.

And as for the disaster movie. Well, my usual taste in books involves happy endings, or at least vaguely optimistic or bittersweet ones. But reading Black Boxes is like watching Titanic or United 93: it's clear from the start that there will be no happy ending here, but you can't look away. It's a very difficult book to put down: I read it in two sittings, but only because I had unexpected visitors, otherwise it would have been a start-to-finish read.

Ana's story probably won't cheer you up much. But Black Boxes is bursting with creative ideas, beautiful language, and unforgettable characters. I think it's probably easier to write nice novels, so I suspect it took some courage for Caroline Smailes to write this book. You may need to be a little bit brave to read it - but if you take the plunge, you'll be very glad you did.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars A book for life
This is one of those books that will stay with you for the rest of your life. Very powerful and thought provoking. It was unsettling how much of it I could identify with. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Mrs. Claire Potts

5.0 out of 5 stars A gripping read
Very occasionally, I read a book where the main character is hard to like. Ana Lewis falls into this category. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Lee Slater

3.0 out of 5 stars Not an easy read for me
The main character is Ana. She is suffering from severe depression and sits in her room doing nothing but mulling over her failed marriage and the fact that her husband has left... Read more
Published 3 months ago by S. Zigmond

5.0 out of 5 stars Does exactly what it says on the tin
Black Boxes
Meet Ana. Mum to Pip and Davie, discarded girlfriend of Alex, from the very start of the novel, we already know she is doomed. Read more
Published 4 months ago by T. Murray

5.0 out of 5 stars Opening the Box

Ana Lewis is a woman on the verge of collapse.

When her lover Alex leaves her, Ana begins to fall into a spiral of depression that consumes her from the... Read more
Published 7 months ago by Jamieson Villeneuve

5.0 out of 5 stars Powerful
This book is very powerful. Black Boxes comes at you on so many different levels, it's not one for the faint hearted but it certainly made me think. Read more
Published 8 months ago by Jude, Cheshire

5.0 out of 5 stars Black Boxes
Black Boxes is a book that gives you your money's worth on every page. Once again Caroline has taken one of life's most important and rarely discussed issues and with her very... Read more
Published 9 months ago by DJ Kirkby

5.0 out of 5 stars A Stunning Read
In her latest novel, Caroline Smailes has created a stunning and enticing journey using startling imagery and an incredibly original use of language. Read more
Published 9 months ago by HelenMH

5.0 out of 5 stars Compelling. Page Turning and Heart Wrenching!


Black Boxes is a hard read. For all the right reasons. We are shoved straight into the head of Ana as she falls through the cracks in her life/nervous... Read more
Published 9 months ago by Fran Lyon

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