Help Me, Jacques Cousteau

By Gil Adamson

Hazel is only a toddler when she sails back to Canada with her parents to begin a new life. As the boat dips and dives across the ocean and sends her bed crashing against the walls, Hazel wakes up to the tragic reality of the world around her. From then on, life seems a constant struggle as Hazel juggles with the miseries of childhood, while attempting to make sense of the odd bunch of grown-ups around her. After all, how much help can you expect from an uncle who collects only white animals, or a grandfather who drives around with a dead dog on the back seat of his convertible, when you have to confront your first day at school, the arrival of a baby brother or your parents' divorce? Still, life could be worse, thinks Hazel, she could be in the chess club, or have a name like Bogdana or Flower...

In this haunting and extremely funny account of the world according to Hazel, Gil Adamson's first work of fiction, written twn years ago and published now for the first time in the UK, reminds us that although growing up is about sorting out life as it is, from life as it should be, stories will always be there to help us pretend.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Release date: Jan 17, 2011
• ISBN: 9781408820704

Gil Adamson

GIL ADAMSON is the critically acclaimed author of Ridgerunner, which won the Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, was a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, and was named a best book of the year by the Globe and Mail and the CBC. Her first novel, The Outlander, won the Dashiell Hammett Prize for Literary Excellence in Crime Writing, the Amazon.ca First Novel Award, the ReLit Award, and the Drummer General’s Award. It was a finalist for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, CBC Canada Reads, and the Prix Femina in France; longlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award; and chosen as a Globe and Mail and Washington Post Top 100 Book. She is also the author of a collection of linked stories, Help Me, Jacques Cousteau, and two poetry collections, Primitive and Ashland. She lives in Toronto.

Reviews for Help Me, Jacques Cousteau

[polarbear123_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

At first I was unsure about this book. Was it a collection of disconnected short stories?The writing is simplistic and this became infectious very quickly, almost poetic. The characters are well realised even without extremely vivid and detailed descriptions. These snippets of a girl's life are revealing, humurous and at times touching. A short read indeed, but a worthwhile one.

[brianmohr_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I saw this book when wandering through Books a Million. I was talking with someone on how people select books and how much a cover matters to buyers. Passing by countless books with uninspiring covers I saw this book. While the cover isn’t the greatest it did have Jacques Cousteau in the title. What person my age didn’t watch his shows growing up. We had actually seen him grow too old and then tell his son to do the hard work as he spoke his broken English to fill out the shows. So I pick up the book and read the back and little review blurbs and still wasn’t quite sure. I sit down and read a few pages and figure out it is light reading but Gil Adamson’s style seems to lose me at first. The stories run together in descriptions of her eccentric family. They move from person to person as though we should already know them. After about 50 pages you know the characters or her family better but I wonder where the story is headed. Then I figure out that the book is strictly a story of her life and her oddball family. From the time you figure out the book, it flies. You look for the next story and how that person intertwined with her life. You realize that deep down the story is kind of sad since everyone concentrates on their life but is that really any different than most people today.In the end the book is quite a read. The book moves fast from her brother’s birth until he becomes an older teen. Showing how the family has its own problems and how they deal with all the normal every day events and how Hazel sees all of these items and either takes them in or drowns them out. I highly recommend it for someone with a spare afternoon to read and then ultimately reflect on their own situation. I bet everyone has a couple of Hazel’s family in their own.

[lkernagh · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

After reading Outlander by Gil Adamson last year, I looked for more novels by Adamson. Adamson's debut novel, help me, jacques cousteau is a fun, quirky, offbeat collection of linked stories about the life and times of Hazel, her younger brother Andrew and the colourful cast of characters that comprise their extended family and neighbors. The stories are told from the POV of Hazel, as she maneuvers through the minefields of her parent's and grandparent's squabbles, her brother's 'silent period' and her own struggles to try and understand those awkward teenage years.If you enjoy the writings of M.A.C. Farrant, Carla Gunn or Miriam Toews, you may enjoy this book, which has been described on the back cover as 'a funny and poignant portrait of an offbeat family'.

[lynnb_64 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is a fast-paced read about an eccentric family, told through the eyes of Hazel, who is a pre-schooler at the beginning of the book and a young adult by the end of it.Hazel and her brother Andrew are children of parents who are unconventional. Her father has a propensity to re-wire the house and her mother is often distant or completely absent. Her paternal grandparents are often estranged, and her grandfather is, by most objective standards, crazy. Her uncles Castor and Bishop have ongoing struggles with women and with their parents.All of this is told in a style that is sparse, yet pays attention to the small quirks and details of human behaviour. I found the book became mroe interesting as Hazel matured. For most of the book, the characters were just a little too off the wall for me to take them seriously, but the ending was stronger than the beginning.