The Review of Contemporary Fiction

The Giant's House by Elizabeth McCracken
Joseph Allen O'Rear

Elizabeth McCracken. The Giant’s House. Dial Press, 1996. 259 pp. $19.95.

I’m sure I’m not the only one who found it odd that Elizabeth McCracken should be nominated one of the twenty-five “Best Young Novelists in America” by Granta in their recent issue of the same name: at the time the nominations were submitted, McCracken had not yet published a novel—would you award an Oscar to a movie that no one had seen? (To be fair, her short story collection, Here’s Your Hat, What’s Your Hurry, received considerable acclaim a few years ago.) Somewhat skeptical, I sat down with the published excerpt from The Giant’s House; the next time I got out of that chair it was to jump on a late-night bus, make three transfers, and endure the sullen indignity of closing-shift bookstore employees in order to get my hands on this stunning first novel.

Ostensibly the memoirs of Peggy Cort, retired librarian of Brewsterville, Cape Cod, the elegantly drawn tale which unfolds across the book’s (physically) tall pages is much more than fictional reminiscence; an often profound meditation on the quietest sort of love, McCracken’s novel insists upon the dignity of its characters, all of whom are as fully alive, as fully hopeful, as they are damaged. Peggy never once questioned her choice of vocation—“I was to the library born,” she tells James Sweatt, the tallest boy in the world. It’s the perfect profession for the shy, self-styled misanthrope, who not only watches James grow from a boy to a man but gradually falls in love with him as well. She really is one of my favorite characters in recent fiction, unapologetically self-absorbed but in every way likeable—the brief, poignant flashbacks to her clumsy college years, for example, coax you to fall in love with her as you recognize the fragility of her carefully constructed self-assurance. James, fourteen years Peggy’s junior, is equally memorable: a sad, gentle boy who grows up to be a sad, gentle man, the fact of his tallness is eclipsed only by the greatness of his heart. The long, nearly pantomimic courtship between these two misfits, including its intersections with McCracken’s wonderful secondary characters, constitutes the plot of the novel entire.

Which is not to say nothing happens—a lot does. In fact, upon second reading, I was repeatedly impressed by McCracken’s intricate, seamless plotting. The ending of this wholly original novel, fantastic to the point of improbable, reads as anything but. For McCracken to be named as one of our best seems, then, not odd at all. [Joseph Allen O’Rear]


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The Review of Contemporary Fiction The Giant's House by Elizabeth McCracken Joseph Allen O'Rear Elizabeth McCracken. The Giant’s House. Dial Press, 1996. 259 pp. $19.95. I’m sure I’m not the only one who found it odd that Elizabeth McCracken should be nominated one of the twenty-five “Best Young Novelists in America” by Granta in their recent issue of the same name: at the time the nominations were submitted, McCracken had not yet published a novel—would you award an Oscar to a movie that no one had seen? (To be fair, her short story collection, Here’s Your Hat, What’s Your Hurry, received considerable acclaim a few years ago.) Somewhat skeptical, I sat down with the published excerpt from The Giant’s House; the next time I got out of that chair it was to jump on a late-night bus, make three transfers, and endure the sullen indignity of closing-shift bookstore employees in order to get my hands on this stunning first novel. Ostensibly the memoirs of Peggy Cort, retired librarian of Brewsterville, Cape Cod, the elegantly drawn tale which unfolds across the book’s (physically) tall pages is much more than fictional reminiscence; an often profound meditation on the quietest sort of love, McCracken’s novel insists upon the dignity of its characters, all of whom are as fully alive, as fully hopeful, as they are damaged. Peggy never once questioned her choice of vocation—“I was to the library born,” she tells James Sweatt, the tallest boy in the world. It’s the perfect profession for the shy, self-styled misanthrope, who not only watches James grow from a boy to a man but gradually falls in love with him as well. She really is one of my favorite characters in recent fiction, unapologetically self-absorbed but in every way likeable—the brief, poignant flashbacks to her clumsy college years, for example, coax you to fall in love with her as you recognize the fragility of her carefully constructed self-assurance. James, fourteen years Peggy’s junior, is equally memorable: a sad, gentle boy who grows up to be a sad, gentle man, the fact of his tallness is eclipsed only by the greatness of his heart. The long, nearly pantomimic courtship between these two misfits, including its intersections with McCracken’s wonderful secondary characters, constitutes the plot of the novel entire. Which is not to say nothing happens—a lot does. In fact, upon second reading, I was repeatedly impressed by McCracken’s intricate, seamless plotting. The ending of this wholly original novel, fantastic to the point of improbable, reads as anything but. For McCracken to be named as one of our best seems, then, not odd at all. [Joseph Allen O’Rear]

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