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9780060930806

Hello to the Cannibals

by
  • ISBN13:

    9780060930806

  • ISBN10:

    0060930802

  • Edition: Reprint
  • Format: Paperback
  • Copyright: 2004-01-01
  • Publisher: HarperCollins Publications
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Supplemental Materials

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Summary

At first, all Lily Austin knows about 19thcentury explorer Mary Kingsley is that, 100 years before, she was the first white woman to venture into the heart of Africa. But as Lily begins reading about Mary Kingsley, she becomes more and more fascinated and discovers in Mary a kindred spirit.In her own life, Lily feels trapped on the one hand, she craves family and intimate connection; on the other hand, she has no healthy or satisfying role models. Consequently, as she nears graduation from the University of Virginia, she finds herself uncertain about what to do with her life.As she researches Mary's life she has begun writing a play about her Lily comes to witness Mary's incredible bravery and startling originality, qualities that prove inspirational to Lily, whose own bravery is required as she attempts to navigate dysfunctional and destructive relationships with her young husband, her extended family and a legacy of abuse dating back to her childhood.

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The New copy of this book will include any supplemental materials advertised. Please check the title of the book to determine if it should include any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.

The Used, Rental and eBook copies of this book are not guaranteed to include any supplemental materials. Typically, only the book itself is included. This is true even if the title states it includes any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.

Excerpts

Hello to the Cannibals
A Novel

Toward the end of her junior year of college, her parents separated, and that summer, the hottest summer anyone could remember, she heard them discuss their dissolving marriage individually, to different people, in distressingly composed, matter-of-fact voices. They might as well have been talking about refinancing a mortgage. With her, they were mutually reserved, polite, careful not to criticize each other. They spoke of reciprocal respect, of what was best for everyone; and it seemed that no rancor existed between them. Indeed, once it came to the final arrangements, they both appeared rather self-satisfied for having accomplished everything with a minimum of pathological scenes. Even the lawyers called it amicable. In Lily Austin's mind, there was nothing about splitting a household in two that could be called anything of the sort.

Her roommate, Sheri Galatierre, attempted to divert her, asking her along to parties and other social events. Lily mostly demurred. As it had been for years, now, she was troubled by the company of strangers, though she didn't express it that way. She didn't know, really, how to say what she wanted.Sheri had a way of getting down into her sorrow with her that made her feel worse, though the other woman obviously meant to help. Dominic Martinez also tried to distract her, being goofy and chattering, clowning for her. He had come to the university that year, having transferred in from North Carolina. He'd walked up to her after one of the performances of the drama department, and said, "Ronda Seiver's party." It had startled Lily, and for a moment she hadn't recognized him. "You got the book that had the lady explorer in it."

"Dominic?" she said.He bowed, exactly as he had that night at Ronda's house.They had become rather like brother and sister, since then. Dominic sometimes refused to indulge her. He would tell her to grow up and stop twisting her own knife in herself. Strangely, that helped some.Yet in the hours when she was alone, nothing quite reached the place where she was hurting. The facts hurt; the knowledge of what had lately transpired between her parents caused a deep, unreachable, continual ache. She couldn't shake the old, terrible, familiar sense of having been betrayed. And so while everyone around her spoke in terms of romance, and while it was in all the books and the plays she was reading - and last spring she had played the most romantic of parts, Rosalind, in As You Like It - Lily had decided that the whole thing irony, had an affair with someone he worked with. He spoke about falling in love. He used the phrase, telling Lily's mother about it, confessing to her that it had been going on for more than a year, crying idiotically and begging her to forgive him. Lily's mother, who had felt the weight of her own increasing estrangement from him, went into an almost surreptitious six-week-long depression, then gathered strength and called a lawyer. Everything was decided with an efficiency, a courtesy, that Lily deplored. It was as if her parents had decided to close a long-running play in which they had performed the lead roles. This was in 1988. Bush and Dukakis were running for Reagan's soon-to-be vacated office, and Lily, entering her last year of college, found that she couldn't care less. In the fall, back at school, she went through the strangeness of writing to and communicating with her parents separately, and of having to speak to the young woman, a set designer, to whom her father was now married (a civil ceremony in Maryland, three days after the divorce was final, in late July). The strain worked on her in unexpected ways: she had experienced episodes of panic and sleeplessness. And when she could sleep at all she had nightmares - one, quite recently, about her fourteenth birthday. She was more upset about how it made her feel than she was about the nightmare itself; inexplicably, it was worse waking from it than being in it. She had registered for double the normal hours, having lost a semester when she switched majors, and wanting to graduate on time. Her teachers liked her ability to lose herself in whatever role she tried, and others commented favorably on her performances. When she had played Rosalind, there was a certain pleasure in being recognized. But she was already discovering that she had no taste for being in front of people. There was something in herself that she defied by continuing to perform, though her sense of this was visceral, flying in the face of her own increasingly introverted feelings. Her discomfiture after the performances, her absence at most of the celebrations and cast parties and social gatherings, had become the subject of talk among the other members of the drama school. She went her own way; and people began to leave her alone. Even Dominic and Sheri kept a certain respectful distance at times. The panic she managed mostly to keep at bay, though trying to decide what she might do after college, after all this relentless work, was cause for anxiety, too. The anxiety, whatever its source, plagued her. When one was suffering through this kind of distraction, it was nearly impossible to concentrate on memorizing large masses of text. It was difficult enough just getting through assigned reading. On one of the last football weekends of her senior year - a crisp, breezy Saturday with the smell of burning leaves in the air and a pleasant coolness that seemed a kind of mingling of the fading summer and the coming winter - Sheri cajoled and begged her into accompanying her to the game. The Cavaliers won big, though since she didn't know anything about football she couldn't make much out of the confusion of sun-reflecting, bright-clad, helmeted bodies slamming into each other on the earth-churned grass. But she discovered that she liked the spectacle, and spent much of the game watching everyone else's happy reactions, surprised by how pleasing that was. "What an amazing thing," she said to Sheri, as the game ended. "That was fun." Sheri, whose speech was punctuated by what Lily thought of as a sort of aural italics, said, " You know, a couple of these boys might end up rich. Does Dominic like football?"

"We don't talk about it, but maybe that's me."

"I don't much like it, but I go."

They strolled over to one of the post-game celebrations, at a small apartment in the center of the campus. People talked too loud, trying to be heard over each other, recounting the high points of the victory. Their enthusiasm made Lily conscious, by contrast, of her own lack of school spirit.

Sheri said, "That's the first game you ever saw? You never even saw a game in high school?

No. She turned and, with a wave of her bony, hard-knuckled little hand, addressed the others in the room. "Everybody, this girl has never been to a damn football game. Today was the first game in her whole damn life. I mean, can yew imagine?"

And out of the group, a young man emerged, stepping forward to say that he could imagine it: he had never been to a football game, either, including today's game; the truth was, he didn't like the sport. Several people hooted good-naturedly at him, and a girl in an athletic-lettered sweater that hung lion her like a robe put a paper party blower in his face and blew it. He was built like someone who could play football-broad across the chest, with beautifully defined musculature in his arms and shoulders. Lily gazed into his hazel eyes and her embarrassment changed; she saw in them an incitement to stand with him, separate from these others, with their banners and their noisemakers and their letter jackets and sweaters. Sheri started to say something, and Lily interrupted her, speaking only to him. "My name is Lily."

He extended his hand. "Tyler."

On an impulse she stepped inside his offered handshake, stood on her toes, and kissed him full on the mouth. He seemed surprised, then kissed back. Everyone was watching them.

"Well," Sheri said, "can yew believe this country? Happiness just walks up and says howdy."

"Let's go out on the balcony," he said with a grin.

Lily took his hand, and there were whoops from the others. It was an exhibition; she felt the colour rising to her face and neck, walking with him towards the sliding glass door leading out of the room. She told herself, as they stepped onto the balcony overlooking Rugby Drive, that in the morning he would be elsewhere, and so would she.

He said, "We've got them all talking now."

"I guess so." She felt a little stab of embarrassment at the dullness of her answer, and she tried to smile at him, feeling the gesture as a kind of spasm in her face.

"Are you cold?"

She pulled her sweater up from her waist, where it had been tied, and put it on, accidentally striking him on the side of the face with her elbow.

He said, "Whoops."

"Oh, God-did I hurt you?"

"I think I'll make it," he said, with a good, soft laugh. A murmurous baritone music was in it; it calmed her.

From where they stood, looking beyond the grass field, they could see cars waiting at a lights, turn signals flashing. He gazed at her, and she was aware of the boniness of her body under her jeans. She had felt skinny and unattractive, yet just now, for a brief few seconds, it didn't seem to matter.

Hello to the Cannibals
A Novel
. Copyright © by Richard Bausch. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.

Excerpted from Hello to the Cannibals: A Novel by Richard Bausch
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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