Edition |
First edition. |
Description |
xii, 235 pages ; 22 cm |
Contents |
Garden party -- Orchids in the morning -- Falling -- Common enemy -- Elma -- Gilded -- Forty days -- Mama, come back -- Desert of his mind -- Elvis face -- Jeepney joyride -- Creatures, great and small -- Library -- Aqua vitae -- Woman at the well -- Sleep now -- Election day -- Monsoon manifesto -- Not water, but whiskey -- No fisher of men -- Millennium -- the season of the Sun. |
Summary |
Told with a lyrical, almost-dreamlike voice as intoxicating as the moonflowers and orchids that inhabit this world, Monsoon Mansion is a harrowing yet triumphant coming-of-age memoir exploring the dark, troubled waters of a family's rise and fall from grace in the Philippines. It would take a young warrior to survive it. Cinelle Barnes was barely three years old when her family moved into Mansion Royale, a stately ten-bedroom home in the Philippines. Filled with her mother's opulent social aspirations and the gloriously excessive evidence of her father's self-made success, it was a girl's storybook playland. But when a monsoon hits, her father leaves, and her mother's terrible lover takes the reins, Cinelle's fantastical childhood turns toward tyranny she could never have imagined. Formerly a home worthy of magazines and lavish parties, Mansion Royale becomes a dangerous shell of the splendid palace it had once been. In this remarkable ode to survival, Cinelle creates something magical out of her truth--underscored by her complicated relationship with her mother. Through a tangle of tragedy and betrayal emerges a revelatory journey of perseverance and strength, of grit and beauty, and of coming to terms with the price of family--and what it takes to grow up. |
Subject |
Barnes, Cinelle.
|
|
Barnes, Cinelle -- Childhood and youth.
|
|
Barnes, Cinelle -- Family.
|
|
Mothers and daughters -- Philippines.
|
|
Women -- Philippines -- Biography.
|
|
Families -- Philippines -- Biography.
|
|
Coming of age -- Philippines -- Biography.
|
|
Philippines -- History -- 20th century.
|
|
Dysfunctional families -- Philippines -- Biography.
|
|
Philippines -- Biography.
|
Genre/Form |
Autobiographies.
|
|
Biographies.
|
ISBN |
9781542046138 (hardcover) |
|
1542046130 (hardcover) |
|
9781542046145 (paperback) |
|
1542046149 (paperback) |
|