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The Hanged Man Paperback – October 6, 1999
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In a stunning departure from her enormously popular Weetzie Bat books, Francesca Lia Block weaves a darkly exhilarating tale of shattered passions and family secrets.
- Print length137 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- Publication dateOctober 6, 1999
- Grade level9 - 12
- Reading age14 - 17 years
- Dimensions5 x 0.44 x 7.12 inches
- ISBN-100064408329
- ISBN-13978-0064408325
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From Publishers Weekly
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
About the Author
Francesca Lia Block, winner of the prestigious Margaret A. Edwards Award, is the author of many acclaimed and bestselling books, including Weetzie Bat; the book collections Dangerous Angels: The Weetzie Bat Books and Roses and Bones: Myths, Tales, and Secrets; the illustrated novella House of Dolls; the vampire romance novel Pretty Dead; and the gothic werewolf novel The Frenzy. Her work is published around the world.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Chapter One
The MoonAt first I think he looks like a skull, like he is wearing a skull mask.
Because somehow the dark glasses look concave like sockets and his face is so thin and white. I think about the skulls they paint in Mexico for the Day of the Dead-little skulls and dangling, dancing skeletons everywhere. He is junky-thin but still bulky around the shoulders and arms, muscley, the way the muscles stay intact after the junk's worn away at the flesh. And he is wonderfully white in the fluorescence of the hospital waiting room.He looks up from his book and nods at me. Then he says hello and his voice is the best thing-it cracks like ice when you pour the liquor over.
"You've been here a long time," he says. I guess it's easy to tell I haven't slept-my clothes are wrinkled and I can feel the shadowy cloud pressing around my eyes.
"I've lost count."
"Why're you here?"
"My father."
I think of my father in the room down the hall-what is supposed to still be my father. Gaping, hooked up with tubes. My mother still not believing, still speaking to him, pleading. As if that was still him. When I look at what is supposed to still be him, I can't remember anything. The way his eyes are the color of the bronze women he made when he was young. The way he used to take splinters out of my hands. Make pancakes shaped like animals. Press his mouth against me, warming my skin with his breath.
"I hate this waiting. Here. It feels sick. You start wishing it would be over with," I say.
"You probably need a break," the man says. "To drive to the beach. Get some air at least."
I notice that his lips are full, different from the rest of his face.
Maybe it is his voice. Or that hospitals are supposed to make people horny. Or that it's the biggest rebound of my life with my father in there dying. But I wish this man would come over to me and press his mouth to my mouth and hold the balls of my shoulders, hold them as if he could crush them to splinters in his hands.
"I better get back," I say, standing up.
"What's your name?"
I tell him Laurel and he says, "Jack."
"I'll see you, Laurel," he says and his voice is full in his throat as if he has said something else, something more.
I go down the hall that is quiet except for a cough and these liquid sounds. My mother is standing outside of my father's room with her face in her hands. The doctor is saying something to her.
My mother feels like a marionette made of string and wood as I lead her out of the hospital and into the heat.
There are black birds hunched in the oleander bushes. As we drive home, we pull up next to a truck with metal bars. Inside, something roars, some caged thing pacing, lashing its tail.
We drive up the canyon under the Hollywood sign. It used to say Hollywoodland like Alice in Wonder or Disney but now it just says Hollywood as in wood of hollys. Or Holy Wood. I think people have tried to leap off of it and die, or is that just in books?
Below the canyon stretches out like an umbilical cord to the belly of the city and up we go past the Spanish-style apartments where the girl got raped last week, some man prowling outside her pink stucco walls while she lay on her bed. Broke the glass. Past the canyon market where I worked last summer, packing bags full of yogurts, avocados, peaches, and wine for the canyon people-the long-haired, junky musicians from My Animal and Shocks and Struts, the beautiful lesbian models Rebecca and Sophie, shaved punk kids, artists in paint-spattered clothes and bone jewelry, film types in cowboy boots and jeans carrying scripts. Past the cafe -they all hang out there too-where Claudia and I drink coffee (mine black, hers sugary and milky brown) and smoke at the window booth with the sun dusting in like some kind of drug we want to put in our noses and mouths and veins.
And up where it winds toward the crest of the hill, past the old stone castles, Spanish villas, Moroccan palaces, gabled fairy-tale cottages-all built for movie stars a long time ago. Charlie Chaplin's house that was a fancy whorehouse after that. And the house where Victoria and her daughter, Perdita, and Victoria's various boyfriends all live. It's covered with hibiscus in front and the blue glass windows must make Perdita feel like she is in some kind of a fish tank.
Tucked in the hills is the lake where the runners circle, passing the rusty metal tubing I have nightmares about, going over the bridge with the carved lion heads and the water below getting sucked down into a whirlpool drain.At the top of the canyon are our two houses-Claudia and her mother, Eva's palace and our house. Both of them under the Hollywood sign looking down over the stretch of canyon to the mother belly city like children attached to an old cord.
We live in a house with a tower. The man who built it was a toymaker; he carved the faces over the fireplace and planted the vines that cover the walls and the oleander in the garden. It smells like cedar and eucalyptus, smoke and lavender in this house. There are things everywhere: books, shells, fossils, dried flowers, bird skulls, the antique wooden cherub, the miniature stone sphinx, ivory monkeys, the brass menorah, china dolls with little teeth, the ancient Roman tear vessel that came from a tomb'-hat looks like a fossilized tear itself; the three bronze women stand erect. My father made them before I was born.
Product details
- Publisher : HarperTeen; Reprint edition (October 6, 1999)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 137 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0064408329
- ISBN-13 : 978-0064408325
- Reading age : 14 - 17 years
- Grade level : 9 - 12
- Item Weight : 5.6 ounces
- Dimensions : 5 x 0.44 x 7.12 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #1,568,533 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Francesca Lia Block, recipient of the prestigious Margaret A. Edwards Lifetime Achievement Award. has been publishing novels, short stories, essays, memoirs and poetry since 1989. Her work has been translated into many languages. Ms. Block lives in Los Angeles where she teaches writing workshops that are also available online.
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The author writes about issues and concerns that teenagers can relate to today. A major problem Laurel has is she is not sure if she is pregnant. Though she isn't sure whether she is pregnant or not she handles situations in a calm manner. Laurel is into tarot cards and witch like things. She says when she looks into peoples eyes she sees images in their life but do not know what these symbols represent. One day she looks into her fathers eyes and sees blades and dark fog. Later she finds out that her dad is dying from cancer and she thinks she caused his disease to appear.
Laurel is experiencing a health called anorexia. Many girls today suffer form eating disorders and health issues. Laurel refuses to eat because the death of her father and she likes being skinny because it makes he feel better about herself. Her doctor says she doesn't eat because she is too stressed out.
Overall this book is a great for teenagers with any issues with relationships, pregnancy, family, and friends. This novel has you at the edge of your seat and is a page turner. Many people can relate to this book because the issues in this book are very common.
Top reviews from other countries
比較的読みやすい英語で、物語もそれ程長くないので、一気に読めます。翻訳がまだ出ていないので、日本語訳を待ち切れない方は是非。ブロックが『L.A.の詩人』と呼ばれるわけが解かるはずです。私はタロットをしおりにして読みました。切なくて、最後には勇気をもらう力強い作品です。
I'll be reading more of Block's work.