The Giant's House (1996) by Elizabeth McCracken

1001 Novels: A Library of America

The Giant's House (1996)

by Elizabeth McCracken

Massachussets: 18/30

Brewster, Massachussets

   Ok,  I'm out on Cape Cod right now- more than halfway through the interminable Massachussets chapter of the 1001 Novels: A Library of America.  I think I'm close to 10% through this list and... a lot of teen girls coming of age and sad single moms so far.   Speaking of which, The Giants House is another sad single lady- though the mom bit takes the whole book to arrive.  The Giants House is an example of a book that does not make for a good Audiobook- which- I'm coming to learn, is a book where the narrator is someone I don't sympathize with or empathize with.  The closer the Audiobook narrator is to me, the better- which is an example of how bias works unconsciously.  The "voice" of a book never bothers me when I read it, because the voice I hear is "my" voice.

  All I'm saying is that I would have had fewer issues completing this title if I'd read it vs. listening to the Audiobook.   Now, The Giants House was a National Book Award nominee back before they had a longlist/finalist- so it was like one of five or four books.  I went back and read the New York Times review at the time it was released and it wasn't a "whoa, all hail this masterpiece."  If anything I would call it essentially a negative or at least neutral review- close to what I felt.  The problem is with the narrator- Cape Cod Librarian extraordinaire Peggy Cort.   Peggy... does not have a lot of romantic self confidence, and even allowing for the fact that this book is set in the psycho-sexual dark ages- 1950 small-town Massachussets, but you'd at least think a Boston trained librarian would have access to books about sex and such that would allow her to get beyond her one-note neurosis. 

   Peggy falls in love with James Sweatt, a teenager destined to become the worlds tallest man.   Cort meets Sweatt when he is a very tall teenager, and the book follows the two and their curious relationship over the course of about five years.   To McCracken's credit, shit gets extremely weird and dark before she closes up the story.