High Drama in Fabulous Toledo

Download or read book High Drama in Fabulous Toledo written by Lily James and published by University of Alabama Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fast-acting antidote to reality, High Drama in Fabulous Toledo is a novel about characters on the brink of impossible chaos. When Ellen, a postmodern everygirl, daydreams her way out of monotony and into the hands of inept kidnappers, she finds she prefers captivity to her own predictable future. Life, for her, is a box to be filled. But by what or whom? Ultimately, faced with defining herself either as victim or manipulator, Ellen opts for both, igniting a chain reaction of volatile identities that levels everyone around her. Ellen's kidnappers, a bouncer named Stef, and his gal-pal Molly, imagine themselves as a barbarian warrior and an electro-sex princess. They deliver Ellen into the hands of Jay, a cybergeek who needs a bride to fulfill his suburban dream. Against all logic, Ellen agrees to marry Jay, fearing that this may be her last chance to avoid a collision with lifelong normality. James's postfeminist fiction is smart and accessible. Her trippy narrative packs a wallop with its wry, skin-tight prose, at once insightful and corrosive to reality. Like a postmodern Flannery O'Connor story. High Drama in Fabulous Toledo is unafraid to shake the balance of order and chaos,