Sometimes the voices that call you home lead you astray... Cheri and Geneva grew up on "a little patch of nothing made up of dairy farms in the valleys and boarded up iron-ore mines in the mountains, a town of old folks waiting to die and young people dying to leave." Now, Cheri has fled that life for the city, leaving Geneva behind to care for their aunt as she succumbs to cancer. Her death draws them together, forcing them to face their past-and each other. When Cheri's mother turns up with a strange baby and a dangerous secret close behind, the choices that follow will push all of them beyond boundaries they never thought they'd cross. In this stunning debut novel, Myfanwy Collins lays bare the hearts of three lost women called together by their own homing instincts in a season that will change their lives-and the place they call home-forever. "Myfanwy Collins tells a deep and resonant story about people she loves, and along the way shows us how to love them as well." -Dorothy Allison, author of Bastard Out of Carolina and Cavedweller "Myfanwy Collins' debut novel calls to mind the grim and radiant work of Daniel Woodrell. From page one, I was chilled by the landscape, caught up in the trouble, and riveted by these women of northernmost New York who slam back together and figure out how to live with what's missing." -Pia Z. Ehrhardt, author of Famous Fathers and Other Stories "Fearless, elegant, and accessible, Echolocation is literary fiction at its best. With heartbreakingly beautiful prose, Myfanwy Collins tells a gripping and tender tale of broken souls yearning for wholeness. These are characters who will stay with you long after you turn the last page. It's a dazzling debut!" -Ellen Meister, author of The Other Life "Myfanwy Collins has the goods. It's that simple. Echolocation is about love in all its magnificent slipperiness; it's about how secrets bind us rather than rend us; it's about the endless series of personal reinventions we call a lifetime. And these are things we had all better be thinking-and reading-about, if we plan to try and get out of this alive." -Ron Currie Jr., author of God is Dead and Everything Matters! "A moving and delicate novel, tracing the poignant destinies of women who long for a home they never had." -Laila Lalami, author of Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits and Secret Son "Get ready to fall madly, sadly in love with the fiction of Myfanwy Collins." -Benjamin Percy, author of The Wilding and Refresh, Refresh
| |||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. Learn more. |
Book Description
Product details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, and more.
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Customer Reviews
There are no customer reviews yet on Amazon.co.uk.
5 star
4 star
3 star
2 star
1 star
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
5.0 out of 5 stars
13 reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Perfect Little Book
19 Feb 2012
By Sara Habein
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
Echolocation is a perfect little book about reality hitting hard. It's about necessary roughness and begrudging tenderness, and it swallows one up while reading. I certainly look forward to experiencing more of Myfanwy Collins' work.
The writing has a very serene quality to it, even when terrible things are happening. The chilly, Northern scenery is nearly its own character, with the pine scent in the air to the absence of power on stormy nights. I can see it -- though it is perhaps colored with my Montana-version of Canadian border wilderness. Inside the store and Marie's home have other personal-yet-personally-familiar details, with memories of past holidays and the proper way to cut a sandwich. These women may feel incredibly screwed up most of the time, but they have their own way of forging on. Everything in this slim book serves a purpose, and that purpose sneaks up at the end in such a way that I have to admire Collins' skills. The details are at once circular, woven, and carved like puzzle-pieces, everything straddling the line between inevitability and choice. I highly recommend this book.
The writing has a very serene quality to it, even when terrible things are happening. The chilly, Northern scenery is nearly its own character, with the pine scent in the air to the absence of power on stormy nights. I can see it -- though it is perhaps colored with my Montana-version of Canadian border wilderness. Inside the store and Marie's home have other personal-yet-personally-familiar details, with memories of past holidays and the proper way to cut a sandwich. These women may feel incredibly screwed up most of the time, but they have their own way of forging on. Everything in this slim book serves a purpose, and that purpose sneaks up at the end in such a way that I have to admire Collins' skills. The details are at once circular, woven, and carved like puzzle-pieces, everything straddling the line between inevitability and choice. I highly recommend this book.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Literary Fiction at its Finest
24 Feb 2012
By Katrina Denza
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
Be prepared. Haunting, mesmerizing, "Echolocation" is a page-turner you will not be able to put down until you've reached the end. It's the story of four women connected by family and the bleak, harsh, land of northern New York. Some have escaped, but they're all brought together again by tragedy and secrets they thought they'd left behind. There's Auntie Marie, dying of cancer, the two girls she raised, Geneva and Cheri, and Renee, Cheri's mother, who ran away to Florida not long after Cheri was born. Cheri returns to help Geneva with their aunt, and Renee shows up unexpectedly with a secret that will change them all.
The characters in "Echolocation," men and women alike, are flawed in the best, most fascinating, ways, and though they make mistakes, they are not beyond redemption, not beyond our empathy. Collins clearly loves her characters, weaknesses and all, and that authorial love elicits a similar compassion from the reader. These four women are fierce. Auntie Marie's devotion to Cheri and Geneva is as strong as her devotion to God; Cheri is determined in her self-destructive desire to deny her feelings; Geneva's strength in carrying on with life after a devastating accident is remarkable; and Renee finally discovers she's capable of caring for another more than herself.
This is a complex story, told with an assured, deft hand. Collins is a master at weaving story lines together in an artful, spare way. Every word is well-chosen. Every nuance is perfectly placed. "Echolocation" is literary fiction at its finest.
The characters in "Echolocation," men and women alike, are flawed in the best, most fascinating, ways, and though they make mistakes, they are not beyond redemption, not beyond our empathy. Collins clearly loves her characters, weaknesses and all, and that authorial love elicits a similar compassion from the reader. These four women are fierce. Auntie Marie's devotion to Cheri and Geneva is as strong as her devotion to God; Cheri is determined in her self-destructive desire to deny her feelings; Geneva's strength in carrying on with life after a devastating accident is remarkable; and Renee finally discovers she's capable of caring for another more than herself.
This is a complex story, told with an assured, deft hand. Collins is a master at weaving story lines together in an artful, spare way. Every word is well-chosen. Every nuance is perfectly placed. "Echolocation" is literary fiction at its finest.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
An absorbing psychological journey with a payoff at every turn
4 Feb 2013
By Richard Bon
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Myfanwy Collins leads readers on an absorbing psychological journey in the lives of compelling characters, some with whom we can't help but sympathize, others we can only detest. The prose itself has a mystical sort of quality to it, a smooth flow allowing readers access to the wandering mind's eyes of multiple characters, showing us their fantasies, their fears, and their often desperate desires. The path itself enthralls and then, as readers reach each of the main character's final destinations, Collins delivers the payoff every time.
Geneva's journey is arguably the most transformative, certainly in the physical sense but mentally as well. Her emotions run the gamut from innocence to heavy guilt, her decisive action in the face of imminent danger cold and calculated, yet sacrificial in nature. By the book's end, readers can only hope she'll go on, somehow able to cope with all she knows about her own capabilities.
Cheri and Renee, daughter and mother, run from one another and from the rest of their family, only to come full circle. Geneva's sacrifice occurs for their benefit and that of Cree, the baby they nearly lose, and readers are left hoping that Geneva's actions on their behalf will be worth their toll.
Rick's ride up the east coast, chasing Renee, disturbing but realistic, ends the way we all hope it will as we read it.
For a novel not short on deaths, Collins' tone is one of hope, in my opinion. Hope that humans, in spite of all of our boredom and angst and fear, can persevere. No character is a better example of this optimistic notion than Auntie Marie, whose spirit acts as a guiding light for Geneva, Cheri, and Renee in specific situations and in a more general sense throughout the narrative.
I hope Myfanwy Collins, whose flash fiction I always enjoy, follows this novel with others; I'll surely read them.
Geneva's journey is arguably the most transformative, certainly in the physical sense but mentally as well. Her emotions run the gamut from innocence to heavy guilt, her decisive action in the face of imminent danger cold and calculated, yet sacrificial in nature. By the book's end, readers can only hope she'll go on, somehow able to cope with all she knows about her own capabilities.
Cheri and Renee, daughter and mother, run from one another and from the rest of their family, only to come full circle. Geneva's sacrifice occurs for their benefit and that of Cree, the baby they nearly lose, and readers are left hoping that Geneva's actions on their behalf will be worth their toll.
Rick's ride up the east coast, chasing Renee, disturbing but realistic, ends the way we all hope it will as we read it.
For a novel not short on deaths, Collins' tone is one of hope, in my opinion. Hope that humans, in spite of all of our boredom and angst and fear, can persevere. No character is a better example of this optimistic notion than Auntie Marie, whose spirit acts as a guiding light for Geneva, Cheri, and Renee in specific situations and in a more general sense throughout the narrative.
I hope Myfanwy Collins, whose flash fiction I always enjoy, follows this novel with others; I'll surely read them.
›
Go to Amazon.com to see all 13 reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
