Portraits at the Palace of Creativity and Wrecking

De: Han Smith

Narrado por: Louise Williams

The almost daughter is almost normal, because she knows how to know and also not know.

She knows and does not know, for instance, about the barracks by the athletics field, and about the lonely woman she visits each week. She knows—almost—about ghosts, and their ghosts, and she knows not to have questions about them. She knows to focus on being a woman: on training her body and dreaming only of escape.

Then, the almost daughter meets Oksana. Oksana is not even almost normal, and the questions she has are not normal at all.

Portraits at the Palace of Creativity and Wrecking is a story of seeing and part-seeing, of silence and speaking out, of conformation and confrontation, by an exhilarating new voice in fiction.

©2024 Han Smith (P)2024 W. F. Howes Ltd

Mysterious and Moving

This is a beautifully written book. At first it seems strange and a little confusing as so much is left to inference and implication, but as the story develops it is impossible not to become attached to the nameless protagonist and her struggles. Han Smith examines how one young woman navigates life in her bleak circumstances, showing us in stark, first person detail the decisions she makes as she tries both to survive and to find happiness. At times this is heartbreaking and sometimes inspiring.

Most importantly, however, this is a wonderful story that draws in the reader more and more as events spiral. By the second half of the book it becomes impossible to stop reading as the Almost Daughter finds herself in increasingly impossible circumstances. In many ways Portraits is tragic, but it manages to be a story of hope and principle at the same time. A truly wonderful read.