Description
House Mother Normal, subtitled "A Geriatric Comedy," is the English writer B. S. Johnson's fifth novel. Unusual in both its subject and structure, this novel is a remarkable study of old age, stripped of sentimentality and spiked with bizarre language and perceptions. Made up of eight monologues describing a single day at a nursing home, House Mother Normal explores the failing minds of the elderly with precision, humor, and unflagging compassion, and Johnson achieves, with inventiveness and escalating absurdity, a vivid multidimensional effect.
About the Author
B. S. Johnson (Bryan Stanley Johnson) (1933-1973) was an English experimental novelist, poet, literary critic and filmmaker. He was born into a working-class family, was evacuated from London during World War II, and left school at sixteen to work as an accountant. However, he taught himself Latin in the evenings, and with this knowledge, managed to pass the university exam for King's College London. After he graduated Johnson wrote a series of increasingly experimental and often acutely personal novels. A critically acclaimed film adaptation of the last of the novels published while he was alive, Christie Malry's Own Double-Entry was released in 2000. Increasingly depressed by his failure to succeed commercially, and beset by family problems, Johnson committed suicide.
Reviews
"A most gifted writer." -- Samuel Beckett
"The future of the novel depends on people like B. S. Johnson." -- Anthony Burgess
"Like his admirer Samuel Beckett, Johnson locates his voices among conditions of such deprivation that even the most miserable memories are gilded by comparison: this paradox fuels equal parts of comedy and pathos. Never sentimental, at once corrosive and elegiac, House Mother Normal is a remarkable achievement." -- The New York Times Book Review
"Britain's one-man literary avant-garde." -- Jonathan Coe
Book Information
ISBN 9780811222143
Author B.S. Johnson
Format Paperback
Page Count 208
Imprint New Directions Publishing Corporation
Publisher New Directions Publishing Corporation
Weight(grams) 225g
Dimensions(mm) 203mm * 135mm * 15mm
About the Author
B. S. Johnson (Bryan Stanley Johnson) (1933-1973) was an English experimental novelist, poet, literary critic and filmmaker. He was born into a working-class family, was evacuated from London during World War II, and left school at sixteen to work as an accountant. However, he taught himself Latin in the evenings, and with this knowledge, managed to pass the university exam for King's College London. After he graduated Johnson wrote a series of increasingly experimental and often acutely personal novels. A critically acclaimed film adaptation of the last of the novels published while he was alive, Christie Malry's Own Double-Entry was released in 2000. Increasingly depressed by his failure to succeed commercially, and beset by family problems, Johnson committed suicide.
Reviews
"A most gifted writer." -- Samuel Beckett
"The future of the novel depends on people like B. S. Johnson." -- Anthony Burgess
"Like his admirer Samuel Beckett, Johnson locates his voices among conditions of such deprivation that even the most miserable memories are gilded by comparison: this paradox fuels equal parts of comedy and pathos. Never sentimental, at once corrosive and elegiac, House Mother Normal is a remarkable achievement." -- The New York Times Book Review
"Britain's one-man literary avant-garde." -- Jonathan Coe
Book Information
ISBN 9780811222143
Author B.S. Johnson
Format Paperback
Page Count 208
Imprint New Directions Publishing Corporation
Publisher New Directions Publishing Corporation
Weight(grams) 225g
Dimensions(mm) 203mm * 135mm * 15mm
