Literary fiction is often knocked for being dismal and cynical, but Oyeyemi proves that it can just as easily be life-affirming, charming and just plain fun. "Both stunningly beautiful and breathtakingly original… imagination, it turns out, is as boundless as her talent.
Endlessly surprising and satisfying, written with Helen Oyeyemi's inimitable style and imagination, it is a true feast for the reader. As the book follows the Lees through encounters with jealousy, ambition, family grudges, work, wealth, and real estate, gingerbread seems to be the one thing that reliably holds a constant value. The world's truest lover of the Lee family gingerbread, however, is Harriet's charismatic childhood friend Gretel Kercheval -a figure who seems to have had a hand in everything (good or bad) that has happened to Harriet since they met.ĭecades later, when teenaged Perdita sets out to find her mother's long-lost friend, it prompts a new telling of Harriet's story. Londoners may find themselves able to take or leave it, but it's very popular in Druhástrana, the far-away (or, according to many sources, non-existent) land of Harriet Lee's early youth. And then there's the gingerbread they make. For one thing, they share a gold-painted, seventh-floor walk-up apartment with some surprisingly verbal vegetation. Perdita Lee may appear to be your average British schoolgirl Harriet Lee may seem just a working mother trying to penetrate the school social hierarchy but there are signs that they might not be as normal as they think they are. Influenced by the mysterious place gingerbread holds in classic children's stories, beloved novelist Helen Oyeyemi invites readers into a delightful tale of a surprising family legacy, in which the inheritance is a recipe. The prize-winning, bestselling author of Boy Snow Bird, What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours, and Peaces returns with a bewitching and imaginative novel. "ildly inventive… prose is not without its playful bite." – Vogue
"Exhilarating.A wildly imagined, head-spinning, deeply intelligent novel." - The New York Times Book Review
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