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Monday, September 29, 2014

Will Rosemary confront her parents in Fowler's novel?

Am a little disappointed that Rosemary's brother, Lowell, seems to make only a cameo appearance in k j fowler's we are all completely beside ourselves: he rolls into town (davis cal.) and after not seeing his sister or for that matter anyone in the family for about 10 years he shows up one night and immediately hooks up w Rosemary's best friend w out a thought to how that could hurt r's feelings. Then after a v awkward late night dinner Lowell spends the rest of the night and thru dawn filling r I to a degree about his life on the run. We understand that he is now a animal rights activist and terrorist. The problem here is that there's just too much telling and fowler doesn't integrate this material into the fabric of the novel. The culmination is his telling r about his attempt to see their chimp sister fern in the lab where she's being held w predictably horrible results. I truly find it hard to believe that both Lowell and rosemary would continue to think of fern as truly a sister. But I guess that's something a reader has to take on faith here. Lowell gives rosemary two important bits of info. First he says fern is living in a zoo tho he hasn't seen her since his visit to the lab - why not one wonders. Second he tells r that she had at age 6 or so made her parents decide btw her and fern  - would there really have been any other choice? He tells her not to feel guilt about that but what is she to feel? Then he takes a train presumably right out of the plot of the novel. So my prediction that the two of them would liberate fern looks wrong - and I would say this novel will live or die depending on whether fowler can manage to bring rosemary back to Indiana for a final confrontation w her father who put his children thru this hell for no good reason

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