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Dear Fang, With Love
On sale
2nd June 2016
Price: £8.99
Lucas and Katya were boarding school seniors when, blindingly in love, they decided to have a baby. Seventeen years later, after a decade of absence, Lucas is a weekend dad, newly involved in his daughter Vera’s life. But after Vera suffers a terrifying psychotic break at a high school party, Lucas takes her to Lithuania, his grandmother’s homeland, for the summer.
Here, in the city of Vilnius, Lucas hopes to save Vera from the sorrow of her diagnosis. As he uncovers a secret about his grandmother, a Home Army rebel who escaped Stutthof, Vera searches for answers of her own. Why did Lucas abandon her as a baby? What really happened the night of her breakdown? And who can she trust with the truth?
Skillfully weaving family mythology and Lithuanian history with a story of mental illness, inheritance, young love, and adventure, Rufi Thorpe has written a breathtakingly intelligent, emotionally enthralling book.
Here, in the city of Vilnius, Lucas hopes to save Vera from the sorrow of her diagnosis. As he uncovers a secret about his grandmother, a Home Army rebel who escaped Stutthof, Vera searches for answers of her own. Why did Lucas abandon her as a baby? What really happened the night of her breakdown? And who can she trust with the truth?
Skillfully weaving family mythology and Lithuanian history with a story of mental illness, inheritance, young love, and adventure, Rufi Thorpe has written a breathtakingly intelligent, emotionally enthralling book.
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Reviews
This book weaves an emotional web that will draw you in completely
Her depiction of female friendship is engaging and sharply observed
Rufi Thorpe's Dear Fang, With Love resists all labels...Vera and her father are each infused with a searing wit, and their time in Lithuania, as they battle with each other and with themselves, is breathtaking to behold.
A brilliantly written, probing, uneasy look at a damaged friendship between two women
While the themes of the book - mania, the Holocaust, and the devastating number of ways that any parent-child dynamic can go awry - are undeniably dark, Thorpe's prose is light, often hilarious, and unshakably grounded in the concrete details of daily life . . . Thorpe has written an absolute winner.
A refreshing and impressive use of voice. A very funny book because of, rather than despite, its close attention to mental illness, the Holocaust, the relationship between children and parents
Thorpe's voice, language, and attention to detail sucked me into the world she's created. Thorpe manages to tackle dark issues-estranged families, mental illness, and failed relationships-with a unique sense of humor and big-hearted empathy.
[Thorpe's] second novel, which blends the cultural history of The Tiger's Wife with the madcap energy of Dave Eggers, just might be her breakout book . . . Takes readers on a father-daughter road trip to Lithuania, where 17-year-old Vera and her father, Lucas, ponder the meaning of family and the way past mistakes and family history can seep into the present
An honest account... Thorpe, the highly regarded author of The Girls from Corona del Mar sets this tale of parental guilt and teenage angst against the town's WWII past, adding true-life authenticity to an already stirring story
Switching between Lucas' endearing narration and Vera's ultra-teenage letters home to her boyfriend, Fang, the novel weaves a strange and strangely intoxicating web of histories, both personal and geopolitical ... Melancholic and whimsical at once, Thorpe's novel is ... wholly original
Hauntingly beautiful . . . an enthralling narrative that has me desperate to keep turning the page
A deeply-detailed, beautiful, often hilarious novel, Dear Fang, With Love unflinchingly examines mental illness, the Holocaust, the power of family myths, and the relationships between generations. A captivating, compulsively readable and utterly original book
Observant, sometimes funny and continuously thought-provoking
Startling... [Vera] is so unapologetically appealing, someone you root for and see the struggle of the muscle under the skin... It's the language, writing, and characterization that spring the novel from a well-told-tale into one of the finest releases of 2016... Thorpe is a major talent, and reading her work will bring to mind other writers who deftly control their universes with such clarity and acuity, like Donna Tartt or Ann Patchett
Dear Fang, With Love is a beautiful story about mental illness and love