So Lucky: A Novel
(Adobe EPUB eBook, Kindle Book, OverDrive Read)
From the author of Hild, a fierce and urgent autobiographical novel about a woman facing down a formidable foe
So Lucky is the sharp, surprising new novel by Nicola Griffith—the profoundly personal and emphatically political story of a confident woman forced to confront an unnerving new reality when in the space of a single week her wife leaves her and she is diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.
Mara Tagarelli is, professionally, the head of a multimillion-dollar AIDS foundation; personally, she is a committed martial artist. But her life has turned inside out like a sock. She can't rely on family, her body is letting her down, and friends and colleagues are turning away—they treat her like a victim. She needs to break that narrative: build her own community, learn new strengths, and fight. But what do you do when you find out that the story you've been told, the story you've told yourself, is not true? How can you fight if you can't trust your body? Who can you rely on if those around you don't have your best interests at heart, and the systems designed to help do more harm than good? Mara makes a decision and acts, but her actions unleash monsters aimed squarely at the heart of her new community.
This is fiction from the front lines, incandescent and urgent, a narrative juggernaut that rips through sentiment to expose the savagery of America's treatment of the disabled and chronically ill. But So Lucky also blazes with hope and a ferocious love of self, of the life that becomes possible when we stop believing lies.
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Nicola Griffith. (2018). So Lucky: A Novel. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation (style guide)Nicola Griffith. 2018. So Lucky: A Novel. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Chicago / Turabian - Humanities Citation (style guide)Nicola Griffith, So Lucky: A Novel. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018.
MLA Citation (style guide)Nicola Griffith. So Lucky: A Novel. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018.
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- bioText: Nicola Griffith (she/her) is a dual UK/US citizen living in Seattle. She is the author of award-winning novels including Hild and Ammonite, and her shorter work has appeared in Nature, New Scientist, New York Times, etc. She is the founder and co-host of #CripLit, holds a PhD from Anglia Ruskin University, and enjoys a ferocious bout of wheelchair boxing. She is married to novelist and screenwriter Kelley Eskridge.
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From the author of Hild, a fierce and urgent autobiographical novel about a woman facing down a formidable foe
So Lucky is the sharp, surprising new novel by Nicola Griffith—the profoundly personal and emphatically political story of a confident woman forced to confront an unnerving new reality when in the space of a single week her wife leaves her and she is diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.
Mara Tagarelli is, professionally, the head of a multimillion-dollar AIDS foundation; personally, she is a committed martial artist. But her life has turned inside out like a sock. She can't rely on family, her body is letting her down, and friends and colleagues are turning away—they treat her like a victim. She needs to break that narrative: build her own community, learn new strengths, and fight. But what do you do when you find out that the story you've been told, the story you've told yourself, is not true? How can you fight if you can't trust your body? Who can you rely on if those around you don't have your best interests at heart, and the systems designed to help do more harm than good? Mara makes a decision and acts, but her actions unleash monsters aimed squarely at the heart of her new community.
This is fiction from the front lines, incandescent and urgent, a narrative juggernaut that rips through sentiment to expose the savagery of America's treatment of the disabled and chronically ill. But So Lucky also blazes with hope and a ferocious love of self, of the life that becomes possible when we stop believing lies.- reviews
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- source: Amal El-Mohtar, The New York Times Book Review
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"A compact, brutal story of losing power and creating community . . . So Lucky is beautifully written, with a flexible, efficient precision that embodies the protagonist's voice and character."
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- source: The Independent (UK)
- content: "A short, fast-paced whirlwind of a novel . . . Spine-tingling and in places downright terrifying"
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- source: Lambda Literary
- content: "A narrative that at once informs, confronts, puzzles and engages. I have little doubt that readers who take it up will be rewarded."
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- source: The Arts Fuse
- content: "This book is a body-slam of empowerment, a roar of frustration so sustained and compelling that it cannot be ignored... a tough, accomplished novel, a book that readers didn't know they needed."
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- source: Booklist
- content: "A fresh and powerful novel and antidote to the sense of victimhood."
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- source: Robin Sloan, author of Sourdough
- content: "So Lucky is somehow both a tense psychological thriller and a subtle character portrait, packed full of pleasure (so closely observed) and pain (so deep, so real). Nicola Griffith is an essential writer, and with this book she's given us something personal, political, and totally unputdownable."
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March 26, 2018
This affecting autobiographical novel from Griffith (Hild) recounts a proud and independent woman’s struggle to lead a meaningful life despite a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis. Mara Tagarelli, the executive director of the nonprofit Georgia AIDS Partnership, is still dealing with her wife’s ending their 14-year marriage when she gets the shocking news that she has relapsing-remitting MS, which is exacerbated by stress. After Mara circulates a budget with some inappropriate language she includes by accident, she’s asked to step down from her position. Suddenly with too much time on her hands, Mara uses her familiarity with big pharma’s misleading advertising to determine what medication might actually benefit her. A bad experience at a support group for people with MS leads Mara to create a new organization, the Cripples Action Team, “a flexible task force with an active, evolving mission to help disabled people help ourselves.” While a subplot involving crimes against the disabled could have been dispensed with, the end product is a plausible warts-and-all portrayal of a person unwilling to let herself be defined by her illness. Anyone who’s ever struggled with medical adversity will be inspired. Agent: Stephanie Cabot, Gernert Company.
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April 15, 2018
A narrative of disability and its consequences.An author of science fiction, thrillers, and historical fiction, Griffith (Hild, 2013, etc.) defies easy categorization. So does her latest novel. It has some of the elements of crime fiction, but its shape does not conform to the genre's norms. Romantic relationships play a significant role in the plot, but this is certainly not a romance novel. This is, more than anything, a story about disability and how it shapes--and reshapes--people's lives. The narrative begins with Mara Tagarelli's longtime partner, Rose, leaving her for another woman. When Mara turns to Aiyana, one of her oldest friends, for comfort, their relationship turns sexual. But Aiyana's job is taking her to New Zealand, so Mara is alone when she discovers that she has multiple sclerosis. As both the illness and the side effects of drug therapy take their toll, Mara is forced to step down as executive director of a multimillion-dollar AIDS organization. Her experience in that space gives her tools for advocating for herself and other people with MS, but her failing body challenges Mara's sense of herself. She's used to being strong and self-reliant, and now she is weak and dependent. She doubts that anyone can really want her. She is prickly about Rose's offers of help, and she assumes that Aiyana has lost interest. Then MS sufferers on a mailing list Mara has compiled become the victims of violence, and she suspects that the perpetrators might be working their way toward her. There are plenty of compelling themes here, and this might have been an excellent novel if it had been half again as long. But everything feels rushed. Mara's reaction to her disease is raw and honest, but readers only see her as caustic and difficult. Unpleasant protagonists can be compelling, of course, but, here, it's easier to understand why Rose and Aiyana would ditch Mara than to understand why they stick with her. And the element of mystery is introduced late and resolved before it generates any real tension.Original but disappointing.COPYRIGHT(2018) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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From the author of Hild, a fierce and urgent autobiographical novel about a woman facing down a formidable foe
So Lucky is the sharp, surprising new novel by Nicola Griffith—the profoundly personal and emphatically political story of a confident woman forced to confront an unnerving new reality when in the space of a single week her wife leaves her and she is diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.
Mara Tagarelli is, professionally, the head of a multimillion-dollar AIDS foundation; personally, she is a committed martial artist. But her life has turned inside out like a sock. She can't rely on family, her body is letting her down, and friends and colleagues are turning away—they treat her like a victim. She needs to break that narrative: build her own community, learn new strengths, and fight. But what do you do when you find out that the story you've been told, the story you've told yourself, is not true? How can you fight if you can't...- sortTitle
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