Icy Sparks

Zusatztext "Vivid and unforgettable...brimming with love and hope." -- The New York Times Book Review " Gwyn Hyman Rubio 's plucky! imperfect heroine Icy Sparks throws herself into life with a ferocity that cannot be denied." -- The San Diego Union Tribune “What a grand person Icy Sparks is! What a wonderful book her story makes! The pages of this novel almost turn themselves as the narrative glides gracefully from sorrow to sorrow! from joy to joy. Gwyn Hyman Rubio is a marvelous writer. Too grateful to envy! I admire and applaud her triumph and hope that everyone will share it with me.” -- Fred Chappell ! author of Moments of Light “Icy Sparks speaks to us in an entirely new voice! painfully wise and wonderfully peculiar. In her original first novel! Gwyn Rudio makes us see that the tics and noises her remarkable heroine can’t suppress are the pure expressions of a brave and lively spirit.” -- Francine Prose ! author of Hunters and Gathers “Gwyn Hyman Rubio twists together her dark and comic visions to create a world so marvelous and strange that it takes one’s breath. Her subject is the entanglements or order and disorder in a rural Kentucky setting of the 1950’s! and she turns them upside down in a way that challenges our own definitions of where and how we live. She is an extraordinary writer.” -- Stephen Dobyns ! author of The Church of the Dead Girls “Icy Sparks is a work of imagination! about being different in a world whose difference brings separation and pain. Icy! in 1950’s Appalachia! finds community with others who also don’t fit in and acquires an outlook that is wise! serious! and yet comic.” -- Loyal Jones ! editor of Reshaping the Image of Appalachia “A most original work of fiction. Icy Sparks is an important contribution to the literature that helps us know the emotional realities of wounded people. It is also one of the few novels of the Appalachian region that goes beyond the description of external reality and places the reader in direct touch with the interior lives of its characters. Brilliant.” -- Gurney Norman ! author of Kinfolks: The Wilgus Stories Informationen zum Autor Gwyn Hyman Rubio has been nominated for a Pushcart Press Editors’ Book Award and anthologized in Above Ground: Stories About Life and Death by New Southern Writers . She is also a winner of the Cecil Hackney Award as well as a recipient of grants from the Kentucky Arts Council and the Kentucky Foundation for Women. Klappentext A New York Times Notable Book and the March 2001 selection of Oprah's Book Club® ! Icy Sparks is the sad, funny and transcendent tale of a young girl growing up in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky during the 1950's. Gwyn Hyman Rubio's beautifully written first novel revolves around Icy Sparks, an unforgettable heroine in the tradition of Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird or Will Treed in Cold Sassy Tree. At the age of ten, Icy, a bright, curious child orphaned as a baby but raised by adoring grandparents, begins to have strange experiences. Try as she might, her "secrets"-verbal croaks, groans, and physical spasms-keep afflicting her. As an adult, she will find out she has Tourette's Syndrome, a rare neurological disorder, but for years her behavior is the source of mystery, confusion, and deep humiliation. Narrated by a grown up Icy, the book chronicles a difficult, but ultimately hilarious and heartwarming journey, from her first spasms to her self-acceptance as a young woman. Curious about life beyond the hills, talented, and energetic, Icy learns to cut through all barriers-physical, mental, and spiritual-in order to find community and acceptance. Along her journey, Icy faces the jeers of her classmates as well as the malevolence of her often-ignorant teachers-including Mrs. Stilton, one of the most evil fourth grade teachers ever created by a wr...

Product details

• Authors: Gwyn Hyman Rubio
• Publisher: Penguin Books USA
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 08.03.2001
• EAN: 9780142000205
• ISBN: 978-0-14-200020-5
• No. of pages: 308
• Dimensions: 130 mm x 205 mm x 23 mm
• Series: Oprah's Book Club; Oprah's Book Club
• Subject: Fiction > Narrative literature