Elaine - Will Self

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Elaine is not just a serious work of art, but an unexpected act of filial generosity' GuardianStanding by the mailbox in Ithaca, New York, Elaine thinks of her child and husband, a n Ivy League academic, inside her house and wonders...is this it? As she begins to push back against the strictures of her life in 1950s America, she undertakes a disastrous affair that ends her marriage and upends her life. Based on the intimate diaries Will Self's mother kept for over forty years, Elaine is a writer's attempt to reach the almost unimaginable realm of a parent's interior life prior to his own existence. Perhaps the first work of auto-oedipal fiction, Elaine shows Self working in an exciting new dimension, utilizing his stylistic talents to tremendous effect. Show more