3.0
Sarah Canary
By Karen Joy FowlerPublisher Description
Two unlikely people form an unexpected bond in bestselling author Karen Joy Fowler’s captivating historical novel—a New York Times Notable Book.
When black cloaked Sarah Canary wanders into a Chinese labor camp in the Washington territories in 1873, Chin Ah Kin is ordered by his uncle to escort “the ugliest woman he could imagine” away. Far away. But Chin soon becomes the follower.
In the first of many such instances, they are separated, both resurfacing some days later at an insane asylum. Chin has run afoul of the law and Sarah has been committed for observation. Their escape from the asylum in the company of another inmate sets into motion a series of adventures and misadventures that are at once hilarious, deeply moving, and downright terrifying.
“Powerfully imagined...Drop everything and follow Sarah Canary....Humor and horror, history and myth dance cheek to cheek in this Jack London meets L. Frank Baum world....Here is a work that manages to be at the same time (and often in the same sentence) dark and deep and fun.”—The Washington Post Book World
When black cloaked Sarah Canary wanders into a Chinese labor camp in the Washington territories in 1873, Chin Ah Kin is ordered by his uncle to escort “the ugliest woman he could imagine” away. Far away. But Chin soon becomes the follower.
In the first of many such instances, they are separated, both resurfacing some days later at an insane asylum. Chin has run afoul of the law and Sarah has been committed for observation. Their escape from the asylum in the company of another inmate sets into motion a series of adventures and misadventures that are at once hilarious, deeply moving, and downright terrifying.
“Powerfully imagined...Drop everything and follow Sarah Canary....Humor and horror, history and myth dance cheek to cheek in this Jack London meets L. Frank Baum world....Here is a work that manages to be at the same time (and often in the same sentence) dark and deep and fun.”—The Washington Post Book World
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communities11 Reviews
3.0
Hayley Ives
Created about 1 year agoShare
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Oleacae
Created over 3 years agoShare
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Kevin McCarty
Created over 4 years agoShare
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Joie Sauvage
Created over 7 years agoShare
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“2,5/5 This book was not what I expected, it is a story about feminism, post war America, Indians and Chinese working in railroads, mental illness... I still love her writing very much but I must say that I was bored during the second half of the book...”
Robyn
Created almost 8 years agoShare
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“Exhaustive research and exquisite writing, but this one just didn't add up to an enjoyable story for me. It is viscerally uncomfortable, with its depiction of madness, race and gender in the post-Civil War West.”
About Karen Joy Fowler
Karen Joy Fowler, a PEN/Faulkner and California Book Award winner, is the author of six novels (two of them New York Times bestsellers) and four short story collections. She has been a Dublin IMPAC nominee, and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2014. She lives in Santa Cruz, California.
Other books by Karen Joy Fowler
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