These main characters are each on a journey to find their place in the world. Their stories are wild and beautiful.
This Wild Family Tale Written for a Girl with a Tail
Miranda is part of a family of circus freaks made to have deformities devised purposely to create a homegrown freak show, (accomplished by the parent members' experiments with radioactive material and drugs). She looks normal save a small tail she flaunts as a stripper. It's written as a family history by her mother who gave her up.
Little Back Story: The book's original cover art by Chip Kidd sports a five-legged dog, (he added an extra leg to the Knopf dog logo in honor of the characters).
Bottom line: You'll love the stripped bare raw humanity in this tale that defies the most freakish deformities of the physical body.
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This Laugh Out Loud Story Written By An Author Who Tragically Committed Suicide Before It Was Published
“A green hunting cap squeezed the top of the fleshy balloon of a head."
Thus describes the uncanny roguish hero Ignatius J. Reilly, a man in his 30s working at a pants factory and hot dog stand while living with his mother. He is highly educated despite his low skilled jobs, and the novel follows the format of Ignatius' favorite book, Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy .
Little Back Story: Toole's manuscript was rejected by Simon and Schuster during his life, then his mother discovered a carbon copy of his manuscript after his suicide and pushed it for publication. It went on to win the Pulitzer Prize.
Bottom Line: Read this for a rollicking good time with a crazy cast of characters that will have you rooting for the idealist underemployed Ignatius to the last page.
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This True Memoir of a Boy Left to His Own Devices
"I was like a packet of powdered Sea Monkeys and they were like water."
This is how Augusten describes his experience growing up in his mother's shrink's home, the psychiatrist's family acting as the "water." He has almost total freedom, allowed to drop out of school but actually craves adult guidance. He settles for attention in adolescence in the form of sex with the shrink's adopted son, a man over twice his age. His road to self-reliance is kicked off when he literally knocks down the ceiling of his house to put in a makeshift skylight.
Little Back Story: The names of people in the book had been changed, but the psychiatrist filed suit against Burroughs and his publisher, alleging defamation, demanded that it be marketed as a "book" rather than a "memoir." So it was printed with the description of book in the author's note, but it still stated memoir on the cover and in marketing.
Bottom line: Brace yourself for truth that's stranger than fiction and by the end wanting to hug and high five the man who wrote this memoir.
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This Classic Tale of an Orphan and an Unusual Benefactor
Pip never knew his parents and is raised by his sister who is constantly berating him and whips him with a rod called "tickler." But he's kindly treated by his sister's husband and becomes needed in a strange sort of way by an old jilted-at-the-altar woman who has never taken off her wedding dress. Later on, he acquires a mysterious benefactor.
Little Back Story: Dickens wrote two different endings. His wealthy aristocratic pal, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, advised him against the original ending which was much more downbeat than the one in current editions.
Bottom line: If you've ever craved support while at the same time wanting to stand on your own, you'll like this classic which is a classic for good reason. Its themes are timeless.
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13 Books You Need To Read If You've Ever Felt Like The Odd One Out