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LONGLISTED FOR THE PEN/JEAN STEIN BOOK AWARD

'[A] compact surrealist memory box of a novel . . . Its particular quality of stillness hums with so much mystery and intensity that the book never feels static . . . ' New York Times

'The Butterfly Lampshade is an unflinching, empathetic portrayal of a childhood touched by mental illness. As always, Aimee Bender's respect for the child and the child within translates into wisdom and magic on the page.' Jing-Jing Lee, author of How We Disappeared

On the night her mother is taken to a mental hospital after a psychotic episode, eight year-old Francie is staying with her babysitter. Next to the couch on which she's sleeping, there is a lamp that catches her eye, its shade adorned with butterflies. When she wakes, Francie sees a dead butterfly floating in a glass of water. She drinks it before the babysitter can see.

Twenty years later, Francie is compelled to make sense of that moment, and two other incidents - her discovery of a desiccated beetle from a school paper, and a bouquet of dried roses from some curtains. Her recall is exact: she is sure these things were real. But despite her certainty, she wrestles with the hold these memories have over her, and with what they say about her place in the world.

Told in lush, lilting prose, The Butterfly Lampshade is a heartfelt and heartbreaking examination of the sometimes overwhelming power of the material world, and of a broken love between mother and child.

The first novel in ten years from the author of the beloved New York Times bestseller The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, a luminous, poignant tale of a mother, a daughter, mental illness and the fluctuating barrier between the mind and the world.

About the Author
Aimee Bender is the author of the novels The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, a New York Times bestseller, and An Invisible Sign of My Own; and of the collections The Girl in the Flammable Skirt, Willful Creatures and The Color Master. Her work has been widely anthologised and has been translated into sixteen languages. She lives in Los Angeles.

Reviews
a beautifully written portrayal of a girl trying to understand her mother's mental illness. * Sunday Express *
[A] compact surrealist memory box of a novel. . . Its particular quality of stillness hums with so much mystery and intensity that the book never feels static . . . I felt considerably more altered by the experience than I often am by novels that travel much further from their beginnings . . . One finishes the novel with the eerie sense that we too are objects who have slipped accidentally into being. * New York Times *
[A] dazzling rumination on time and mental illness ... Bender has a gift for rooting wonderfully inventive fables in a very recognisable walkable world [and the] middle-class Los Angeles of backyards and hatchbacks, bus stops and craft shops, is overlaid with mythic events-modest miracles, observed by few, that expose a world of mystery. . . [Francie's] receptiveness to the marvels eddying around brightens every detail in a small, deeply felt life. * Oprah Magazine *
[A] poignant novel of love and mental illness. * USA Today *



Book Information
ISBN 9780091953904
Author Aimee Bender
Format Hardback
Page Count 304
Imprint Hutchinson
Publisher Cornerstone
Weight(grams) 422g
Dimensions(mm) 222mm * 144mm * 144mm