The Canary family are unlike any other. Joan is exquisite, tiny, mute, plays the piano like Mozart and lives in a closet. Marcy is a nymphomaniac, while Sonja earns a fortune clipping hair-grips to cardboard and knits compulsively. Their parents keep their own habits secret for as long as they can.
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The Canary family are unlike any other. Joan is exquisite, tiny, mute, plays the piano like Mozart and lives in a closet. Marcy is a nymphomaniac, while Sonja earns a fortune clipping hair-grips to cardboard and knits compulsively. Their parents keep their own habits secret for as long as they can.
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Add this copy of Mister Sandman to cart. $4.86, very good condition, Sold by Goldstone Books rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Ammanford, CARMS, UNITED KINGDOM, published 1996 by Flamingo.
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Add this copy of Mister Sandman to cart. $6.99, very good condition, Sold by Brit Books rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Milton Keynes, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE, UNITED KINGDOM, published 1997 by Flamingo.
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Very good. Simply Brit – welcome to our online used book store, where affordability meets great quality. Dive into a world of captivating reads without breaking the bank. We take pride in offering a wide selection of used books, from classics to hidden gems, ensuring there's something for every literary palate. All orders are shipped within 24 hours and our lightning fast-delivery within 48 hours coupled with our prompt customer service ensures a smooth journey from ordering to delivery. Discover the joy of reading with us, your trusted source for affordable books that do not compromise on quality.
Add this copy of Mister Sandman to cart. $6.99, good condition, Sold by Brit Books rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Milton Keynes, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE, UNITED KINGDOM, published 1997 by Flamingo.
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Good. Simply Brit – welcome to our online used book store, where affordability meets great quality. Dive into a world of captivating reads without breaking the bank. We take pride in offering a wide selection of used books, from classics to hidden gems, ensuring there's something for every literary palate. All orders are shipped within 24 hours and our lightning fast-delivery within 48 hours coupled with our prompt customer service ensures a smooth journey from ordering to delivery. Discover the joy of reading with us, your trusted source for affordable books that do not compromise on quality.
Add this copy of Mister Sandman to cart. $8.68, good condition, Sold by Greener Books rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from London, UNITED KINGDOM, published 1997 by Flamingo.
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Add this copy of Mister Sandman to cart. $8.69, very good condition, Sold by Greener Books rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from London, UNITED KINGDOM, published 1997 by Flamingo.
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Very good. **SHIPPED FROM UK** We believe you will be completely satisfied with our quick and reliable service. All orders are dispatched as swiftly as possible! Buy with confidence! Greener Books.
Add this copy of Mister Sandman to cart. $10.11, good condition, Sold by ThriftBooks-Baltimore rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Halethorpe, MD, UNITED STATES, published 2008 by Steerforth Press.
Add this copy of Mister Sandman to cart. $10.48, very good condition, Sold by ThriftBooks-Atlanta rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Austell, GA, UNITED STATES, published 1997 by Steerforth Press.
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I knew I was in for a treat when I opened my copy of the new edition of Barbara Gowdy's 1995 novel Mister Sandman, and saw that the foreword was written by Katherine Dunn, author of the weird and wonderful Geek Love. I wasn't disappointed.
Set in Toronto in the late fifties through the early seventies, Mister Sandman is the story of the Canarys, a most unusual family. Father Gordon works at a publishing house, editing potboilers. He's quiet and deep, and he--like everyone in the novel--has a secret. A very big secret. Mother Doris is an habitual liar ("the truth is just a version" she famously says) who's built a past as an actress and now raises three children. She has a secret, too. Sonja is the eldest of the three girls, and her secret is that the youngest of the three is her daughter. Marcy is the middle girl, smart and aware. And then there's Joan.
The eternally innocent Sonja is seduced--or raped?--by a man we later discover to be extremely important to others in the family. Doris immediately determines that they must go to her great aunt in Vancouver, where Sonja can have the baby and no one will be the wiser. There is never any thought of not keeping the baby and raising her as Doris and Gordon's third daughter.
Joan is lovely: tiny, delicate, and pale, she is physically an eternal child . She doesn't talk or write, but she has the gifts of music and insight. Joan is the literary descendant of Gunter Grass's Oskar, who at the age of three wills himself not to grow any bigger, and of Irving's Lily Berry, who just stops growing; like them, despite her tiny stature she has emotional, spiritual, and intellectual capacities far beyond her apparent years--and far beyond those of everyone around her as well.
Joan is, for most of the book, the secret keeper of the family. All are drawn to her and each feels the need to confide in her. She knows all of the lies and the deceptions, she knows the joys, the pleasures (both conventional and illicit), she knows what everybody wants. In the end, it seems, she knows what they need, too, although they don't know it themselves. And, as almost always happens, the secrets will be told.
Words and language are very important in Mister Sandman. Joan speaks a language of soft clicks and hisses and moos and meows, perfect imitations of the noises she hears around her and mostly intelligible to her family. Sonja hears her mother's declaration that "the truth is just a version" as "the truth is just aversion." The words pour out of Gordon and Doris and Marcy and even the dull Sonja, and Joanie absorbs them all. What she does with them in the end is her gift to her "darlings," her family.
Mister Sandman is magical--dreams are prophetic, transformative, sometimes shared by more than one person. It's tragic, full of betrayal, despair, revelation. It's funny. It's excruciatingly erotic, often at the most awkward of times. Occasionally the novel verges on being cloyingly quirky, but there's always just enough nastiness lurking at the edges to pull it back into the realm of the weird and the wonderful.
