Twenty-two-year-old Rosemary Cooke is wasting time - and her parents' money - ostensibly studying at a US college, but in reality drinking too much and getting into trouble with the local police.
The fact this is not going to be a standard tale of student life is intimated from the beginning when Rosemary refers to her childhood and family life, casually mentioning her sister Fern and older brother Lowell have disappeared from the picture.
She tells the reader: ''if I hadn't told you that, you might not have known ... whole days went by in which I hardly thought of either one.''
Yet something terrible and unmentionable has clearly happened. Rosemary's relationship with her academic parents is tarnished by it. Loss, grief, anger and isolation fill the void. There is an ominous feeling regarding the nature of the pivotal incident which led to her siblings' disappearances, and questions for the reader, and Rosemary, about her part in it.
The incident itself is not the major revelation, however, but that is impossible to reveal without spoiling the book for future readers. Suffice to say, it packs a punch, and the reader then realises the clues were there all along.
The revelation explains much about Rosemary's behaviour, why the once talkative fun-loving child has become a loner, why making ''normal'' conversation and forming ''normal'' relationships is so difficult, and why her sense of herself is so confused.
Although Rosemary is for ''remembrance'', she is an unreliable narrator, whose repressed and surfacing memories cannot be trusted, and the full truth of her story takes time to be revealed.
Author Karen Joy Fowler examines some complex themes and emotions in this book, through a variety of lenses: psychology, philosophy, anthropology and science.
The characters struggle with guilt, shame and blame. Through them she challenges the ideas of family, love and loyalty, right and wrong, nature and nurture, science and emotion, memory and experience, and explores what it means to be human.
Inventive, thought-provoking, poignant and immensely readable - the only thing I felt didn't do it justice was the title!
- Helen Speirs is ODT books editor.
Win a copy
The ODT has five copies of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, by Karen Joy Fowler (RRP $35), to give away courtesy of Serpent's Tail, and distributor Allen & Unwin. For your chance to win a copy, email helen.speirs@odt.co.nz with your name and postal address in the body of the email, and ''Karen Joy Fowler Book Competition'' in the subject line, by 5pm on Tuesday, April 15.
