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A review by jereco1962
The Giant's House by Elizabeth McCracken
4.0
While I did enjoy this book a great deal, I understand why some are off-put by the central character: she's self-pitying to the point where I wanted to slap her (hard) and tell her to seek help. And that's not her only failing...but the author has imbued her with some very clever views, a remarkable prose style and a wry sense of humor that saved her for me. If you've heard that it's a sort of distaff Lolita, you would be right. But not as creepy, and this narrator is a finer writer than Nabokov allowed Humbert Humbert to be.
The major qualm I have is that this book contains that same disclaimer that so many works of fiction do - you've seen these words before: "Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental." Hogwash. I call shenanigans, Ms. McCracken. Regarding your novel, that statement is disingenuous at best (and a flat-out lie at worst). The giant of the title is a young man who grows to be the tallest person in the world. He is based quite obviously on Robert Pershing Wadlow - the actual young man who holds that title to this day, despite passing away in 1940. McCracken tweaks a couple of things: she shifts the time period about 15 years, her character is a few inches shorter (8'7" instead of 8'11"), some pounds lighter (418 lbs. vs. 490) and he only lives to 20 years of age (vs. 22). But SO many other details are so specific as to be beyond coincidence: both had their shoes made for free by a shoe company in exchange for public appearances; both appeared with Barnum and Bailey - and in street clothes rather than costumes; both rode in cars with the front passenger seat removed to give them leg room; both walked with a cane and leg braces; both lacked feeling in their legs and died from an infection caused by the leg braces; both died in their sleep; both were buried in concrete to prevent grave-robbers from digging up their bodies and both lived in homes that were later called The Giant's House.
I understand the desire to appropriate this young man's life and alter names and details to fit the novel - this is not a biography, after all - but to pretend that he never existed, and that the details of his life didn't inform this work...well, that's not kosher, at all. You can't commit libel against the dead, so it isn't as if there were some legal need for that wording in the book. Tony Kushner admits that he changed many details of Roy Cohn's story to fit his Angels in America plays - and even so he kept the guy's name and persona intact. This was a more benign usage of a person's biographical details, but by using that standard fiction disclaimer, she disrespects the poor man in the worst possible way: by ignoring him completely.
The major qualm I have is that this book contains that same disclaimer that so many works of fiction do - you've seen these words before: "Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental." Hogwash. I call shenanigans, Ms. McCracken. Regarding your novel, that statement is disingenuous at best (and a flat-out lie at worst). The giant of the title is a young man who grows to be the tallest person in the world. He is based quite obviously on Robert Pershing Wadlow - the actual young man who holds that title to this day, despite passing away in 1940. McCracken tweaks a couple of things: she shifts the time period about 15 years, her character is a few inches shorter (8'7" instead of 8'11"), some pounds lighter (418 lbs. vs. 490) and he only lives to 20 years of age (vs. 22). But SO many other details are so specific as to be beyond coincidence: both had their shoes made for free by a shoe company in exchange for public appearances; both appeared with Barnum and Bailey - and in street clothes rather than costumes; both rode in cars with the front passenger seat removed to give them leg room; both walked with a cane and leg braces; both lacked feeling in their legs and died from an infection caused by the leg braces; both died in their sleep; both were buried in concrete to prevent grave-robbers from digging up their bodies and both lived in homes that were later called The Giant's House.
I understand the desire to appropriate this young man's life and alter names and details to fit the novel - this is not a biography, after all - but to pretend that he never existed, and that the details of his life didn't inform this work...well, that's not kosher, at all. You can't commit libel against the dead, so it isn't as if there were some legal need for that wording in the book. Tony Kushner admits that he changed many details of Roy Cohn's story to fit his Angels in America plays - and even so he kept the guy's name and persona intact. This was a more benign usage of a person's biographical details, but by using that standard fiction disclaimer, she disrespects the poor man in the worst possible way: by ignoring him completely.