An Invisible Sign of My Own

(, New edition)

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Description

AN INVISIBLE SIGN OF MY OWN is the story of Mona, a young woman obsessed with numbers, whose life is becoming overrun by bizarre compulsions. She lands a job as a primary school maths teacher, and creates a 'beautiful museum of numbers' where anything - a child, a brooch, a jelly, an amputated arm - has deeper meanings. Then she meets the science teacher, who has burns on his fingers and a strange talent for teaching his pupils the symptoms of scurvy, and love, and sanity, begin to enter her world.

Reviews

UK and US praise for Aimee Bender: 'Aimee Bender's spectacular first novel...masterful' Village Voice 'A delicious adventure in the wonder of language' Elle 'A hypnotic love story' Harper's Bazaar 'Masterful' Time Out NY 'Intriguing [and] engaging]' Marie Claire '[Bender] has taken an achingly idiosyncratic story and rendered it with eloquence, hilarity, and ominous precision... beguiling and chilling' Boston Globe 'Bender's prose [is] always beautiful, always original' Salon 'A breezy, electric, smash of a first novel' Philadelphia Inquirer 'Light as a zephyr and unique as a snowflake' Washington Post 'Witty and engaging ... a fanciful and original take on the quietly helter-skelter world that lies within' New York Times Book Review 'An Invisible Sign of My Own achieves what all good fiction sets out to do' San Francisco Chronicle "With its sparse, ironic prose, this novel is a wonderful literary treatment of anxiety, depression, and compulsion. Readers of Bender's collection of short stories will not be disappointed, as well as those looking for a fresh, ground-breaking author." -Booklist "Filled with terrific wit and lovely helpings of life's tougher truths, Bender's fairy tale fulfills the promise of her highly regarded collection of short stories, The Girl in the Flammable Skirt. Highly recommended." -Library Journal "Like Nathanael West, Bender has figured out how to map an alternative landscape where only the most essential landmarks-- pain and anxiety, comedy and compassion-- are recognizable. It is a remarkable achievement." --New Times Praise for Aimee Bender's short stories: 'Ludicrous! Fantastic! Bender has a perfect pitch. Her stories are fierce and true' LA Times 'Incendiary' New York Times Book Review 'Stylish...darkly comic...a notable debut' Kirkus Reviews 'Aimee Bender's debut is a string of jewels' Publishers Weekly 'Thank God for wild intensity, creativity run amok, and literary audacity. Thank God for Aimee Bender' MSNBC 'Hilarious, deep and a little bit dirty' Harpers Bazaar 'Superbly imagined. Bender has hit the ground running' Entertainment Weekly 'Bender's stories read like modern fables--with a healthy sense of twisted humor thrown in for good measure' Village Voice Literary Supplement 'A writer who makes you glad for the very existence of language...[This] is a collection of simple, archetypal glimpses of a mythology so contemporary it has not yet been written' San Francisco Chronicle

Author Bio

Aimee Bender lives in Los Angeles. Her collection of stories, THE GIRL IN THE FLAMMABLE SKIRT, had rave reviews. This is her first novel.