Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    Half Life: A Novel
    Unavailable
    Half Life: A Novel
    Unavailable
    Half Life: A Novel
    Ebook645 pages8 hours

    Half Life: A Novel

    By Shelley Jackson

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    “Ingenious, sensual, gleeful. . . . It demands of its readers only imagination, and rewards them with hilarity, terror, and marvels.”—Jonathan Lethem, author of Motherless Brooklyn

    Nora and Blanche are cojoined twins. Nora, the dominant twin, thirsts for love and adventure, while Blanche has been asleep for nearly 30 years. Determined to shed herself of her her sister’s dead weight, Nora leaves for London in search of the mysterious Unity Foundation, which promises to make two one.

    But once Nora arrives in London, the past begins to surface, forcing her into a most reluctant voyage into memory—a search for meaning and understanding, that will push Nora to the brink of insanity. Grotesque, funny, and dazzlingly told, Shelley Jackson’s first novel is an imaginative and touching portrait of two lives in a cleft world yearning for wholeness.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateOct 13, 2009
    ISBN9780061744815
    Unavailable
    Half Life: A Novel
    Author

    Shelley Jackson

    Shelley Jackson is the author of the short story collection The Melancholy of Anatomy, the hypertext novel Patchwork Girl, several children's books, and "Skin," a story published in tattoos on the skin of more than two thousand volunteers. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

    Related to Half Life

    Related ebooks

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Best Translated Book Awards Names 2020 Longlists

      Apr 1, 2020

      The 35 books on this year's fiction and poetry longlists represent 20 different countries and feature authors writing in 18 languages. The post Best Translated Book Awards Names 2020 Longlists appeared first on The Millions.

      3 min read

    • Article

      The Volcano That Shrouded the Earth and Gave Birth to a Monster

      Oct 5, 2017

      Two hundred years ago, the greatest eruption in Earth’s recorded history took place. Mount Tambora—located on Sumbawa Island in the East Indies—blew itself up with apocalyptic force in April 1815. After perhaps 1,000 years’ dormancy, the devastating

      18 min read

    • Article

      Two Poems

      Jan 1, 2021

      Pre-apocalypse, things take on a certain radiance our eye the dystopian lens lingering on death: a field of corpses, say— then resting on an amber ditch where the assassin’s flicked cigar flares red. And now I’m eating wasps. Did you know that figs a

      2 min read

    • Article

      'The Raven Tower' Rises From Shakespearean Foundations

      Feb 26, 2019

      Ann Leckie's new fantasy novel is packed with family intrigue, throne-room maneuvering and nods to Hamlet in its story of a son who comes home to find his father missing and his uncle in power.

      2 min read

    • Article

      Jenkins

      Feb 4, 2021

      Jenkins
      6 min read

    • Article

      Five Poems

      Mar 1, 2022

      Five Poems
      5 min read

    • Article

      I Was a Public Schooler

      Jun 9, 2020

      The application to Waverley Glen Academy required that I spend a day sitting in on freshman classes and mixing with the student body to see how well I’d fit in. I was twelve. Picture the gleaming wooden corridors, the Persian rugs, the monogrammed si

      14 min read

    • Article

      Three Poems

      May 1, 2023

      Great One, Maker, Weaver of Things, I want to undress the tree to find you hidden there in the layers of sapwood, as you were hidden in a mango I ate today, its sweet and buttery flesh. A fly entered the house through the front door. Was that you? At

      3 min read

    • Article

      Lover of Cars

      Sep 12, 2023

      all those Stingers Jaguars Tiguans Fiat 500sand San Remo Green Beemer i4s I love allthose model numbers numb-sexy like cashmerethrown over a dinosaur skeleton like a robot’skiss I fell asleep watching an Audi documentaryand dreamt of a low low R8 sco

      1 min read

    • Article

      Ishion Hutchinson

      Jun 8, 2021

      Tremor in his hands. He turns obsoleteleaves edged with thunder since the opening scene.What he sees he reads under croton shade,out in the sun. Restless peninsula,dog-eared, melting off into the blue.The blue breaks white as hallucination,more hagga

      3 min read

    • Article

      The Island (catullus 64)

      Mar 1, 2022

      Back then the evergreens tumbled downriverfrom the glaze-white runoff to the boot-stirred puddlesof amber young men who fulfilled our destiny,who clambered into ships, on horses, and in wagonspainting the newfound landscapes ours.Our calling was nobl

      9 min read

    • Article

      Shards Of Earth

      May 19, 2021

      Shards Of Earth
      2 min read

    • Article

      Tracie Morris

      Mar 9, 2021

      1. There’s a sign near the waterfrontI think it’s advertising cheer:says 400 YEARS, VIRGINIA SPIRITS. A swig. A year ago last night, my dead crowd mean even ceremonyof Jamestown, at the schooner that brought those first here.They think: long tripdid

      2 min read

    • Article

      Farewell To The Flesh

      Nov 2, 2022

      Farewell To The Flesh
      4 min read

    • Article

      Paul Tremblay

      Jun 17, 2020

      IT’S ALWAYS BEEN ONE OF MY BIGGEST FEARS that I would live to see the end of everything,” says Paul Tremblay, speaking to SFX from his Massachusetts home in the middle of lockdown. It’s a singularly peculiar time, and a peculiar interview for him to

      3 min read

    Reviews for Half Life

    3.5/5

    29 ratings9 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      This is very much a Sliding Doors type of narrative, where half is based on truth, half on speculation. For the most part, the two storylines are distinct, but they were close enough in some content that I sometimes couldn't remember which variation a particular event happened within. Overall, an enjoyable read.
    • 5/5
      This novel explores a historical "what if" that really resonated with me - what if Marie Curie had stayed in her native Poland and married a different man? In alternating chapters, the story plays out. The historical Marie goes to Paris, meets and marries Pierre Curie, and together they pursue groundbreaking scientific research. The imagined Marya marries a budding mathematician, they struggle to make ends meet, Marya pursues her education but it's limited and many years before she can take formal courses and do any kind of research. Both women ponder, at times, their own choices and happiness, wondering if different paths were open to them. Overall, I really loved this book, I appreciated the questions it asked of the reader, and the story it presented.
    • 4/5
      Fascinating concept--what would Mme. Curie's life have been had she decided to marry the young man to whom she had been engaged instead of going to Paris and studying science? The author attempts to answer this question in alternating chapters: Marie with her life progressing as in reality and the Marya chapters positing her possible life had she chosen to stay in Poland and marry.
    • 5/5
      I cannot praise Jillian Cantor enough for her book, "Half-Life". The what "was" and what "might have been" theme of this novel is mesmerizing. Jillian blends fact and fiction so seamlessly that sometimes it is hard to tell which is which. Different loves and tragedies develop in both lives. There is no such thing as a "perfect" life. There is, however, happiness in each life. One must cling to all the love, hope, happiness, and outright joy that each day of our lives brings for (to?) us. Throughout the novel Marie/Marya remain true to themselves and who they are deep down inside. They strive to be the best person they can be and live their lives fully. Everyone must read this book.
    • 3/5
      I enjoyed this book when I first started. I got right into it and was excited to go with the story. The world they lived in was interesting but at times I felt like there was way too much imagery. There would just be whole paragraphs between plot points where it was nonstop imagery. It felt too stilted. I skimmed through most of it and still easily got everything there was about the story. At the end, when she started to go insane, I was done.

      It started great but went downhill into a twisted mumbly roller-coaster and then rushed an ending in the last half-page. Very frustrating.
    • 1/5
      This is the co-winner of the Tiptree this year, so I expected a lot more from it. The book is set in a world very similar to our own, except with more nuclear explosions and a population of conjoined twins large enough to have their own lobby groups. Nora is uncomfortable sharing her body with her conjoined (but perpetually unconscious) twin, Blanche, so she resolves to get Blanche surgically removed. I really love the idea of having two brains and thus, two personalities and two sexualities to a body, but the book doesn’t explore this. Instead, it focuses on Nora’s childhood in the desert, where she had quirky, twisted adventures in the radioactive dunes. By the end, Nora and the novel have lost all touch with reality—which is fun except for the fact that it’s completely unreadable. This book is the written equivalent of the last twenty minutes of “2001”—I’m sure *something* “deep” is going on, but I’m not sure what and mostly I just feel bored and nauseated.
      I actually feel insulted that Jackson expected readers to slog through hundreds of pages of self-congratulatory cleverness, with no discernable plot and unlikeable, unrealistic characters.
    • 2/5
      Okay, so this won the Tiptree award, which is usually a good indicator of something interesting.

      And it is an interesting idea: that there are a lot more conjoined twins in the world (because of radioactivity or something), so they've become a vocal minority like gay people.

      Except that this is pretty much the ONLY idea in the book, and sure it's fun to imagine all the many, many different aspects of gay culture that could apply to conjoined twins, but you can't write a symphony using just one note.

      Also, she seems to be a victim of Look-At-Me-I'm-A-Writer! syndrome. For example:

      "Once, I plunged my right hand wrist-deep in a red ant den. Blanche did not move or cry, though a sun boiled at the end of that arm. I was the one who yanked out the swollen pentapod, brushed off the myrmidons sleeving our forearm in fire."

      Jeez, lady. Calm down.
    • 3/5
      The premise was interesting--the twofer population, what happens when your sister is rightthere. Some of the stories of their childhood were repulsive--I was actually nauseated and would have to put the book down. Towards the end, the main character, Nora, seems to be going through some kind of mental breakdown and frankly, I felt like I was having one too, and I do not read to feel insane. It hurt my brain a little.
    • 4/5
      I found this book unusual and intriguing until the ending. I enjoy a good surreal mind bender. And this book certainly came through. The plot was non-linear and the readers was forced to extract reality from hallucination in an alternate reality setting. I really liked the reality of the conjoined twin world from their status as a minority group to the social, political, and economic ramifications of such a group. From two hooded hoodies to the argument of plane fare and the impact on the criminal justice system. Even romantic relationships take on a very complex structure.That said, she makes the moral of the story a little too plain and ties up the book in a neat little package of metaphors at the end. As if I couldn't figure out on my own that the battle between two drastically different conjoined twins is actually a metaphor for the battle of one's own dark and light sides.Overall I liked the book. I just tend to get put off when an author begins to preach to me.