An Invisible Sign of My Own: A Novel

by Aimee Bender

Paperback, 2001

Status

Checked out

Publication

Anchor (2001), 256 pages

Description

Aimee Bender’s stunning debut collection, The Girl in the Flammable Skirt, proved her to be one of the freshest voices in American fiction. Now, in her first novel, she builds on that early promise. Mona Gray was ten when her father contracted a mysterious illness and she became a quitter, abandoning each of her talents just as pleasure became intense. The only thing she can’t stop doing is math: She knocks on wood, adds her steps, and multiplies people in the park against one another. When Mona begins teaching math to second-graders, she finds a ready audience. But the difficult and wonderful facts of life keep intruding. She finds herself drawn to the new science teacher, who has an unnerving way of seeing through her intricately built façade. Bender brilliantly directs her characters, giving them unexpected emotional depth and setting them in a calamitous world, both fancifully surreal and startlingly familiar.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member AmyLynn
Aimee Bender has a way of warping reality into the skewed vision people live in. The setting is vividly depicted by blue shadows from a futuristic hospital and the omen of a story of broken people hangs over the entire cast of characters.

The novel manages to wrap up leaving you wishing for one more
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page, but also satisfied that the novel stops the way our anecdotes about life do. Mona Gray is still knocking on wood somewhere.
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LibraryThing member debovico
Good writing; a bit too hermetic. The protagonist doesn't seem to live in the world; there is not quite enough texture. OK for a story, but not really sustainable for a novel. Still, a good read. The prose is excellent.
LibraryThing member Djupstrom
Delightfull wacky. A math teacher that goes off the deep end. I think we all can relate to her. Bender is becoming one of my favorite authors that no one knows about.
LibraryThing member miriamparker
I have to admit that this was my least favorite of Aimee B's books...it was like a story that was taken too far with a novel. But it's still so much better than most books that are ever written.
LibraryThing member freestar
I loved it. She shows fascinating ways people deal with life and death. At the end of the book it gave me the feeling that being wierd is just uniquely normal and it is realy possible to do more than just survive.
LibraryThing member LaurenGommert
A quirky novel about an OC women just starting her professional carer as a teacher. Her even quirkier students teacher he lessons in life and love. It has a bit of an unbelievable air to it, but the story ultimately won me over.
LibraryThing member tangentialine
this book is beyond awesome.
LibraryThing member SqueakyChu
I had a bit of a tough time with this book. Ms. Gray is young woman who is "into" numbers and "into" knocking on wood. She has a bit of obsessive-compulsive and a bit of autism spectrum in her personality. She is likeable, however. She gets a job as a Math teacher in an elementary school, where she
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introduces the idea of Materials and Numbers. For this project, each child must bring in a number made out of some material.

This is where the book gets wild and wacky. One child brings in a part of an arm for the number "1". The teacher brings in an axe for the number "7". You get the idea.

A relationship begins to develop between Ms. Gray and Benjamin the science teacher, but it is often thwarted by soap (yes, soap!). You're not going to understand my review of this book. If your "thing" is bizarre, post-modern and creative literature, give this book a try. If not, don't go near it!
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LibraryThing member unsquare
I read this at the same time I listened to The Bell Jar, and they felt cut from similar thematic cloth, even though this wasn’t nearly as harrowing as The Bell Jar and was also surreal and magically realist instead of a lightly fictionalized memoir. It’s mostly just that both books are about
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young women struggling with depression and having a hard time dealing with adulthood and modern life. This one had a happy ending if only because the author is still alive.
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LibraryThing member LibroLindsay
This was a great book for me, especially with where I'm at in life right now. I really identified with Mona Gray, the main character, and I really liked her deal with numbers--I have very similar habits. I read this after reading Bender's two short story collections, and it really fell in-sync well
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with them. It was a fairly quick read...the beginning really drew me in, it slowed down a bit after, but I couldn't put it down for the second half of the book. This is one I'll be coming back to on down the line.
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Language

Original language

English

Original publication date

2000

Physical description

256 p.; 5.13 inches

ISBN

0385492243 / 9780385492249

Local notes

Fiction
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