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Download Sights Unseen ePub

by Kaye Gibbons

ISBN 0380729725
ISBN13 978-0380729722
Language English
Author Kaye Gibbons
Publisher Harper Perennial; First THUS Edition edition (November 1, 1997)
Pages 224
Formats rtf doc azw mobi
Category Fiction
Subcategory Literary
Size ePub 1951 kb
Size Fb2 1161 kb
Rating: 4.1
Votes: 320

The acclaimed author of ELLEN FOSTER and the brilliant New York Times bestseller CHARMS FOR THE EASY LIFE, Kaye Gibbons paints intimate family portraits in lyrical prose, using as her palette the rich, vibrant colors of the American South. SIGHTS UNSEEN is the author at her most passionate and heartfelt best -- an unforgettable tale of unconditional love, and of a family's desperate search for normalcy in the midst of madness. It is a novel of rare poignancy, wit and evocative power -- the story of tragic, emotionally devastated Maggie, "the Barnes woman with all the problems, and daughter Hattie, a child struggling to rind a place for herself in her damaged mother's heart.

It is more intense, more vibrant, both richer and stranger

It is more intense, more vibrant, both richer and stranger. Readers will be thoroughly in thrall to her clear, true voice and to the poignant story she tells. Kaye Gibbons writes memoirs of other.

A young girl in a small town named Bend of the River Road struggles to understand her mentally disturbed mother and preserve their relationship.

This poignant, powerful, and critically acclaimed novel by the bestselling author of Charms for the Easy Life has been reformatted for trade paperback.

This is the fifth and final book by Kaye Gibbons that I read in 1997. All were read within just a couple of months of each other and the details of this particular novel are long forgotten

This is the fifth and final book by Kaye Gibbons that I read in 1997. All were read within just a couple of months of each other and the details of this particular novel are long forgotten. It sure My Original Notes (1997)

Mothers and daughters - Fiction. North Carolina - Fiction.

Kaye Gibbons' award-winning novels of Southern family life . 0 5 Author: Kaye Gibbons Narrator: Kate Fleming

Kaye Gibbons' award-winning novels of Southern family life . 0 5 Author: Kaye Gibbons Narrator: Kate Fleming. The bestselling author of Charms for the Easy Life reads "her best novel since Ellen Foster.

Kaye Gibbons two book collection. Sights Unseen by Kaye Gibbons (1995-08-30). Kaye Gibbons has compiled what one critic has called "a fictional oral history of female wishes and hopes. 1) a cure for dreams. Ellen foster (167pages.

In heartfelt and potent prose, through Hattie's hushed voice, Sights Unseen tells the story of a troubled relationship and the courage it takes to see it through. Read on the Scribd mobile app.

Now, she tells the "story of family dislocation and crisis in restrained prose of unflinching clarity, with a honing eye for the small domestic details that conjure a time, place and emotional atmosphere. In heartfelt and potent prose, through Hattie's hushed voice, Sights Unseen tells the story of a troubled relationship and the courage it takes to see it through. Download the free Scribd mobile app to read anytime, anywhere.

In fact, they had every Kaye Gibbons book BUT Ellen Foster. Sights Unseen is the story of Maggie Barnes’ manic depression and the struggle of her family to cope with it, told through the eyes of her now adult daughter Hattie. So, I took a chance and picked up Sights Unseen, as its southern setting and mother-daughter relationship topic sounded interesting and non demanding. I was right about the interesting part, but totally wrong about the non demanding; though it’s a short book that I read in just a couple of days, it was so rich and emotive and fascinating that I ended up using far more brain power in absorbing it and thinking about it than I had expected.

June 2005 : USA Paperback. Title: Sights Unseen: A Novel (.

031886) Gibbons, Kaye. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1995.

Talk about Sights Unseen

Uleran

Quite a book! Not what I expected after reading The Virtuous Woman by the same author. It has its own strengths...very thought-provoking, poignant. My heart broke for Hattie who tried so very hard to help her mother and find the love that she needed so much. I just wanted to hug her and tell her what a wonderful person she was!
I loved the book no matter how difficult it was to read at some points.
I look forward to enjoying other books by Kaye Gibbons!

interactive man

Good book

Delalbine

Almost. Perfect condition.

Nanecele

SIGHTS UNSEEN, a short novel by Kaye Gibbons, tells the story of a woman named Maggie Barnes with bipolar disorder, told through her daughter, Hattie's, eyes. Hattie, writing from the perspective of the woman she's become, relates the events that happened to her mother, specifically those events that took place during Hattie's twelfth year, in 1963, when Maggie, between bouts of sex-crazed mania and suicidal depression, ran into a woman with a car and was sent to Duke for electroconvulsive shock therapy that was meant "cure" her.

The strength of the novel is in Kaye Gibbons' sensitivity to the severity of manic depression and what it's like for someone who has to live with bouts of extreme joy and severe sadness. However, if you're looking for some kind of insight from Hattie in this novel, you won't find it. Hattie is a completely impersonal narrator; it's easy to forget that she is Maggie's daughter. She seems so disconnected from the story and the events that are happening. The reader gets no insight into Hattie's hopes or fears--we don't know how she feels about growing up without a reliable mother; it's almost as if Gibbons deliberately skirts Hattie's feelings in order to talk more about her mother's antics. There is a brief suggestion that Hattie desperately desires her mother's attention, but it is not fully developed, and is therefore unbelievable.

The novel has potential--but, because of Hattie's failure as a narrator, it falls short of the goal Gibbons probably imagined it would attain.

Stanober

"Sights Unseen" came as an even greater disappointment to me after having my expectations built up by "Ellen Foster" and "A Virtuous Woman," two terrific novels by the same author, Kaye Gibbons.
In those two novels, Gibbons displayed a knack for the perfect turn of phrase, and a deep understanding of the human heart. Both qualities were lacking in this book.
Page after page chronicled the mishaps in the life of a manic-depressive woman (weeks in bed, followed by deliberately running into a woman with her car), as told by her daughter. I would rather have heard the story from the woman herself. What was running through her head as she pressed that gas pedal? What, in her mind, was the reason for her seemingly miraculous recovery, and her even more miraculous, instant reconciliation with her daughter?
A subplot that seems only somewhat related focuses upon the narrator's grandfather, an overbearing bully who keeps everyone except his daughter at a distance.
Overall, a well-meaning book that could have benefited from substantial revision.

Acrobat

This novel had a good story idea, but it is a bit drawn out. It could have been written on half as many pages and still told the same story. Even though I liked the story idea, I did not like the way everybody catered to and coddled Maggie - I didn't think she deserved it. It might give other "crazy" people the impression that they have the right to be babied. Tolerating someone is okay, but Maggie wasn't just tolerated - she was given everything she wanted and was treated like a queen and did not have to take responsibility for anything. In a way, the novel was sad because Hattie longed for a mother - I know that feeling, so I could relate to her. Except for the brand-new one, I have read all of Kaye Gibbons's books in the order in which they were written, and none of them measure of to 'A Virtuous Woman'. I don't think I'll ever read any more of Kaye Gibbons's books, because her writing style gets farther and farther away 'A Virtuous Woman', and it doesn't look like we'll have anymore books of that quality. Her latter books have been drawn out and a bit dry.

Qusserel

This book chronicles a few years in the childhood of a young girl named Hattie whose mother is a severe manic depressive. Unlike other children, Hattie and her brother, Freddy, operate more as caretakers than as children. They watch their mother and act according to her state of mind for that specific day. Pearl, the cook and maid, acts as surrogate mother, nurturing the siblings with care and love as they grow older, something their mother has never been able to do. Pearl also acts as guardian to the mother, keeping her from leaving the house in a frenzy when she is manic and from killing herself when she is depressed. Although this book was easily read in a day, it was disappointingly bland and somewhat anti-climactic. I can't place exactly what it was - it just didn't build up to a page-turning "what-will-possibly-happen-next" mindset and I grew bored and apathetic towards the end which is highly unusual for me. I would recommend it as a good, thought-provoking, informative book on manic depression but certainly not as entertaining fiction.

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