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    Cupboard Full of Coats: A Novel
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    Cupboard Full of Coats: A Novel
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    Cupboard Full of Coats: A Novel
    Ebook256 pages4 hours

    Cupboard Full of Coats: A Novel

    By Yvvette Edwards

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    “[A] gorgeously lyrical debut novel….Engrossing and human to the core, Edwards’s novel wrings the heart in the most tender of ways.”
    —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

    “The novel is high drama, full of breathtaking tension, and, at times, brought to mind the works of Arthur Miller and August Wilson, both of whom knew a thing or two about secrets spilled across a kitchen table.”
    —Attica Locke, author of Black Water Rising

    Soon the name on every fiction lover’s lips will be Yvvette Edwards, thanks to her extraordinary debut novel, A Cupboard Full of Coats. Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, one of Great Britain’s most prestigious literary awards, and named one of Kirkus Review’s Best Books of the Year, Edwards’s powerful first novel is at once a poignant family drama and a gripping mystery—page-turning literature with an exhilarating infusion of noir. It is the story of Jinx, who believes she played a pivotal role in her mother’s murder, until an old acquaintance appears at her door with seductive air, a long, strange story, and, quite possibly, the bitter truth. A truly stunning work of contemporary literary fiction that packs an emotional punch and keeps readers guessing to the end, A Cupboard Full of Coats is already being compared by critics to the novels of the master, Ruth Rendell.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateJul 31, 2012
    ISBN9780062183767
    Unavailable
    Cupboard Full of Coats: A Novel
    Author

    Yvvette Edwards

    Yvvette Edwards is the author of The Mother, the critically acclaimed story of losing a child to violent crime. Her first novel, A Cupboard Full of Coats, was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and shortlisted for the Commonwealth Book Prize. She lives in London.

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    Reviews for Cupboard Full of Coats

    4/5

    113 ratings21 reviews

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    • 4/5
      A Cupboard Full of Coats tells the story of Jinx a young woman who still struggling to heal after her mother's murder fourteen years prior. Jinx has trouble maintaining relationships and is estranged from her husband. She has a young son to whom she is a detached and seemingly uncaring parent.One weekend her mother's friend, Lemon shows up at Jinx's house wanting to revisit the events leading up to the murder. Jinx is reluctant at first but Lemon sways her with delicious home cooked food and alcoholic beverages. What follows is a tragic tale. I enjoyed this book and thought it was very well written. The pacing was good at the characters were believable. I would recommend this to fans of contemporary fiction.
    • 4/5
      Summary Jinx is living in London alone. As an embalmer, she works better with the dead than with the living, including her own young son and his father, her ex-husband. Painful memories resurface one day when she opens her front door to a man she's known since she was 16. Lemon was a friend to her mother's lover, Berris...the man who now is in jail for her violent death. After his own failed attempt at finding and living a normal life, Lemon has returned to confess everything the secrets of the past; what he doesn't realize is that Jinx too suffers as well from living with her own secrets, secrets that have literally eaten her alive from the inside out. She is a numb shell of the person she could have/should have become. Over the course of a few days, Lemon bares his soul and forces Jinx to do the same.What I LikedThe complications - I kept thinking of Toni Morrison again and again and again as I read this book. The issues are so complicated and so obviously deeply felt/understood by the author that the reader can sometimes feel left out. I liked this bc I like a book that makes me think...I don't want it to be an easy read or one that is obvious...this book has no chance of being obvious.Lemon - I had to struggle to keep up with the story it took him 3 days to tell (he himself called it a "long-winded roundabout")...but I wanted to.The dialect and vocabulary - to be honest I both liked and disliked this aspect of A Cupboard Full of Coats - the cultural voice adds authenticity to this story...a glimpse into the rich life of a culture other than my own, actually a culture within a culture. But, I did sometimes feel left out...and especially with Lemon's dialect and choice of words, I had to re-read sections and searched for context clues where many times there actually were none. I actually used Google searches several times to familiarize myself with words like "digi," "sorrel," "Dunlop plimsolls," "poofter," "jingbang," "cassava," "christophine," "sabaca," and "shebeen."The coats and their symbolic meaning...I didn't get it at first but when it hit me...wow, not an excited, loud "WOW!"...just a quiet introspective "wow"...a quite effective piece of imagery to say the least.Jinx's son's connection to her mother was another piece of strong vine that holds this story and the Jinx's inability to be a mother to her own child together. Jinx's lack of maternal feeling toward Red and was actually unbelievable to me until the story circled back around...and it's not like me to believe actions like these. Another wow moment.What I Didn't LikeThe ending - things worked out a little too nicely for me...granted there's a lot of story left to be told...but still. These are seriously damaged people who are struggling with very deeply ingrained issues; then within the last few pages, the sun comes up and everything's ok. Huh?Berris - duh, he's an abuser...how could anybody like him? Except for the woman he's abusing.Sam - I am still not sure what her significance is to this story...I'll let you know if I figure it out.Curry - there's a lot of it in this story...and I don't like it :P Jinx finds comfort in the smells of home and hearth but it was difficult to appreciate her comfort when my own personal aversion is so strong :/This is one of those stories that unpeels itself in unsystematic ways...questions didn't always get answered when I needed them to and a few times I felt as if I didn't have enough information to figure out what in the world was going on or why Jinx acted the way she did. I actually found one post-it note about midway through the story where I simply wrote "huh"?I don't mind switching back and forth in time, but I swear I felt like there was another part to this story, one that began during Jinx's childhood, that I missed completely...there's has to be some connection somewhere with Sam, but I never got it.Overall RecommendationIf you like family sagas including painful, hard to read sometimes, issues, then you'll like this one. Don't expect a happy, sunny ending though; if you need everything to work out like a Cinderella story, this isn't your read. It's quite dark at times, but it's supposed to be.
    • 3/5
      Man Booker long list? Geez, they must have been scraping the bottom of the Booker barrel in 2011. Sure, this is an OK read, but to my mind it doesn't really rise much above the level of romance. The characters have little depth, the story is implausible, and there's not much complexity to the underlying message. It seems to me that the Man Booker must have become more like the children's book prizes here in Australia where politically correct stories about refugees and indigenous people are seen as intrinsically more meritorious. This is a story about, and in the voice of, a particular ethnic group living in London. I have no idea of its authenticity in that regard, but it was a little bit interesting to me to read about a cultural enclave which I wouldn't otherwise encounter.
    • 4/5
      This was a very dark book and Jinx was a very damaged main character and narrator. Jinx and Lemon spend the weekend sharing their perspectives on Jinx's mother's murder with each other. Through flashbacks, it becomes apparent how Jinx grew into such a cold, almost robotic adult. She is not a good mother and the part when her four-year old son comes over for a visit was hard to read. I was left wondering how someone like Jinx came to get married and have a son in the first place. However, the focus of this novel is the immediate time period around Jinx's mother's death and the weekend that Lemon comes to visit fourteen years later. I think not including much information on Jinx's life in the time between her mother's death and Lemon's visit makes the weekend seem that much more intense.Even though I didn't really like Jinx, I thought her character was well-developed and the reasons she turned out to be such a dysfunctional adult were definitely authentic. The domestic abuse storyline was tough to read but realistic. Jinx and Lemon put each other through the wringer - their weekend together is like an intensive therapy session. I enjoyed the way the author revealed the events of the past slowly and thoroughly as Jinx and Lemon open up to each other.The writing was beautiful yet melancholy. I can see why A Cupboard Full of Coats was longlisted for the 2011 Man Booker Prize.
    • 4/5
      What would you do if you opened the door to find a man you hadn't seen in 14 years standing on your doorstep, a man who disappeared from your sixteen year old life? What if you had loved him with every fiber of your teenaged self? What if the last night you saw him was the night your mother died, was murdered? What if you held yourself responsible for her death, you felt you killed her? How would you respond to this man from the past then? This is the opening premise of Yvvette Edwards' first novel, a novel longlisted for the Booker Prize.Jinx has spent the past fourteen years blaming herself for her mother's violent death. She is so full of guilt and anger at the situation that she is completely emotionally frozen, unable to connect even to her young son Ben. Her husband Red moved out with Ben when he was just a baby and Jinx hasn't been able to repair the relationship either with Red or with Ben because she is so trapped by her feeling of culpability. So she lives a lonely and unfulfilled life. But when Lemon shows up on her doorstep, he starts to thaw her just by his very presence, forcing her to remember that terrible night and what led up to it.Inviting him to stay, Jinx is afraid to re-open herself emotionally to Lemon but he gently and insistently takes her into the tragedy of his own life, having just lost his wife and been estranged from his own son for his son's entire life, as he leads her to face the biggest tragedy of her life. Alternately narrated by Jinx and by Lemon, the past comes to life as they finally speak of Jinx's beautiful mother and of Berris, her fiance and lover, the man who murdered her in a fit of jealous rage. Each of them adds layers to the tragedy, sharing from their own perspective, admitting their feelings from the time, exposing what drove them to act the way they did, finally creating a complete and total picture of that night. As Lemon listens and expands on Jinx's understanding of the events leading up to her mother's murder, he cares for her, nurtures her, and cracks open her heart just the tiniest bit, allowing her to finally face all her confused and unhappy feelings, to share the unspeakable, and to let go.The novel is exquisitely written. It takes place over one weekend although it ranges backwards fourteen years and to the months leading up to the murder. There is a slow uncovering of long, intentionally buried memories and Edwards uses all of the senses to show this blossoming, describing sights and sounds and noises with a startling vividness. And she tackles race, conceptions of beauty, abuse, love, family, and coming of age surprisingly fully all within this relatively short novel. The way that the reverberations of the murder leak into every crevice of Jinx's life and the way that her all-consuming guilt dooms her to be an emotionally distant and confused mother are convincingly shown. While there is certainly no doubt as to the fact of the murder (it is made clear almost from the start that Berris went to prison for it), the way in which the whole truth about the circumstances is revealed is masterfully done, keeping the tension of the story constant and drawing the reader ever forward. Intense, passionate, and brimming with emotion, this is a compelling read.
    • 4/5
      This is the story of Jinx, now a 30-year-old mother estranged from her husband and son. The story takes place over a weekend when a family friend, Lemon, visits Jinx to review what happened leading up to her mother's murder fourteen years earlier.The story is compelling and Jinx is very real. However, I found the writing style a bit disjointed...there were foreshadowing references where it only became clear what the characters were referring to later on in the book. Sometimes this works; in this case, I found it frustrating and distracting. I liked the book more a few days after reading it than immediately after finishing it. The frustrating gaps were, by then, filled in and I was able to reflect on the full picture of what happened and why.
    • 4/5
      This book begins with an older man knocking on a London door in the pouring rain. The man is from the worst part of Jinx's past, the part involving her stepfather and the murder of her mother, for which she feels responsible. Lemon was her stepfather's best friend. Together, over the following days, they discuss their shared past. Edwards begins her book by making Jinx, the narrator, unsympathetic and then works forward to make her actions and thoughts understandable. This is an uncomfortable book, with its theme of domestic violence tied to the coming of age of a teenage girl. Jinx may have made her home as clean and uncluttered as possible, but as Lemon cooks for her, her house fills with the tastes and aromas of her childhood, as the only child of an emigre from Montserrat, and with that the memories of when her mother fell in love with the wrong man.
    • 3/5
      This is the story of a daughter and a family friend who both feel responsible for the murder of the girl's mother about 15 years ago. The man who actually committed the murder has just been released from prison and this leads the two main characters to get together to retell the events leading to the murder and to assess their lives and other relationships. I felt it was a slight story, but well written and intelligently presented.
    • 5/5
      A Cupboard Full of Coats is an intense and riveting read about domestic abuse and its devastating, far-reaching effects. Joy, a beautiful mother and still young widow, is “dying for love.” (Ch 12) She meets Berris and moves him into the homes she shares with her sixteen year old daughter. Their passionate affair quickly morphs into unconscionable abuse, and Joy is killed. Jinx, her daughter, blames herself for her mother’s murder. Now in her early thirties, her adulthood is characterized by withdrawal, isolation, and strained relationships. Lemon, a friend of Berris’ whom Jinx has long admired, visits Jinx with the hope of helping her to see her way through her past. An emotional weekend ensues.The story is authentic, bearing all of the textbook markings of domestic abuse: role reversal; sympathy for the abuser; shame; secrecy; conciliatory gifts; and the yearning for order, for something to exist, however small, that is in the realm of one’s control. Yet Edwards is triumphant in making the story deeply personal. A Cupboard Full of Coats is a story that needs to be told, and told again. A worthy read and impressive debut novel. “It was like someone had shaken everything out of her, every ounce of hope, every decent memory, everything good she’d kept stored inside, and left in its place a sack, one that could still be shifted from place to place, propped up, made to lie flat, but no matter how hard I searched, was empty inside.” (Ch 5)
    • 4/5
      Wow. I'm so in the minority on ratings here -- nothing new there. A Cupboard Full of Coats is Yvvette Edwards' first novel, and I'm happy to see that it was made available via an independent publisher, Oneworld . I went to their website and found a few more little gems I'm probably going to check out in the near future. I love that Indie publishers are represented on this year's Booker Prize longlist; let's hope that this is a trend that continues well into the future. A Cupboard Full of Coats is another one of those novels that I probably would never have read had it not been placed on the Booker Prize longlist this year. It skirts the boundary of what I consider "women's fiction," but at the same time, there's another story embedded within dealing with the experiences of Afro-Caribbean immigrants, so it's a bit difficult to affix any particular label to this novel. It has a very well-developed sense of place, and even the mentions of the food throughout the book add to the overall atmosphere of the story. The main storyline follows and is related primarily by the main character, Jinx, a young woman who works as a cosmetologist at a funeral home. She is living apart from her husband and her little boy, largely because she seems to have no capacity for caring for anyone. She's cold as ice, and even when her son comes for his visits, she has no idea how to relate to him. She's happier to be around dead people -- all of which stems from an incident fourteen years earlier when her mother was murdered in the family home. Throughout all of those years, Jinx has felt guilty about her role in her mother's death; that event and her guilt have left her emotionally paralyzed. Now, as the novel opens, it's all brought back to her in the person of Lemon, who wants to relive the events of the past -- all symbolized by the cupboard full of coats left behind by Jinx's mother.My feelings about this novel are a bit mixed -- I am not a huge fan of this type of story at all and it's tough to get past the fact that this is the story of a young girl who comes of age while living under the same roof as her mother's abuser. You know, the kind of stuff you could tag as dysfunctional family lit. And while I am fully conscious of the fact that abuse against women is prevalent and needs to be brought out into the open, those types of novels just aren't my thing. At the same time, I'm very interested in novels dealing with the stories of immigrants, especially about children born to immigrant parents, and that was the novel's selling point for me. The story of Sam, Jinx's best friend in high school, offers a look at the kind of dilemmas these children face. I only wish there had been much more along these lines; for the most part, the past story (the story of how Jinx's mother came to be murdered) was much more interesting than the narrative occurring in the present. I also found Jinx as a character to be emotionally overwrought in that melodramatic sort of way that makes for great women's fiction, but a bit overdone for my own particular tastes.However, I will say that many people absolutely LOVE this book, and that 4- and 5-star ratings abound everywhere a rating can be given. And considering the fact that this is Ms. Edwards' first novel, it's a good debut -- and how many first novelists end up on the Booker Prize longlist? I'd probably give her next novel a go if it's more about immigrant experience and less women's fiction-y. This one is just a bit more mainstream than literary for my own enjoyment.
    • 5/5
      Fourteen years ago Jinx's mother was killed in a terrible case of domestic abuse. Jinx blames herself for the death of her mother, and in so doing, cuts herself off from virtually all human connection, including her ex -husband and young son. When Berris, Jinx's stepfather is released from prison, an old friend of both Berris and Jinx's mother stops by with the excuse that he is "just passing through and thought I might stop by."Jinx reluctantly allows him in, and the two of them spend the weekend talking and remembering the dreadful death of her mother.Cubboard of Coats is a wrenchingly honest and gritty look at domestic abuse and its far reaching impact on family and friends.I found it to be a compelling and insightful read. Initially I was concerned that the subject matter might be too dark, but I quickly found myself totally immersed in the tale. Cupboard of Coats never wallows in cliches, nor does it resort to stereotypes. A sad but ultimately redeeming read, not to be missed.4.5 stars.
    • 4/5
      Fourteen years ago Jinx witnesses the horrific murder of her mother in their flat in the Pemsbury Estate in Hackney, London. It's an event that will blight her future relationship with her future husband and child and force her into semi-obscurity, feeling most comfortable with the cadavers she tends at the mausoleum where she works.One evening Lemon, an old friend of her mothers, turns up unannounced with news to break. But there's more, and over an weekend of alcohol, music and sumptuous Montserratian cuisine they revisit the events that led up to the fateful night.Although set in and around my old stomping grounds in London around Hackney Downs and Dalston Kingsland I did not expect to like this book. For a start it is littered with ridiculous name: Jinx, Lemon and Red, names which proffer and unnecessary distraction. However as the book went on I found myself wanting to know where it was going and even enjoying the process. The descriptions of the male characters, especially Berris and Lemon are well developed and harken back to a timeless sense of style, and the descriptions of the food had me salivating.It isn't in conventional booker territory so I would be surprised to see it going through to the shortlist but for a first time effort by Yvette Edwards, it isn't half bad.
    • 4/5
      Jinx is a beautiful but deeply troubled east Londoner born to Caribbean immigrants, whose life was shattered 14 years ago when her mother Joy was brutally murdered by Berris, her second husband and Jinx's stepfather. Jinx blames her own jealousy and spite for her mother's murder, and has shut herself off from everyone, including her ex-husband and their young son, until the day that Lemon, Berris' best friend and a man she has admired since she first met him as a teenager, knocks on her front door. Lemon seeks to makes amends for his role in her mother's murder, now that Berris has just completed his prison sentence. During an intense weekend, filled with deep emotions and tempered by Lemon's irresistible cooked meals, the two relive their own separate and interlinked past histories, the passionate but troubled relationship between Berris and Joy, and the seemingly benign but malicious acts that led to Joy's murder. A Cupboard Full of Coats is an intense and gripping debut novel which was an interesting selection for the Booker Prize longlist. I don't expect it to be selected for this year's shortlist, as it lacks the rich character development and complexity of the typical Booker fare. However, this being a far from typical year for the prize, I wouldn't be completely surprised if it does appear amongst the six finalists.
    • 4/5
      Solidly written with compelling characters. The story kept me interested but ultimately wasn't terribly surprising. I didn't quite buy the moment of redemption at the end, but by the time I got there I was so attached to Jinx that I was mostly just happy for her.
    • 5/5
      This is a brilliantly written, passionate mother-daughter story. Jinx has lived very contentedly with her mother Joy after the death of her elderly father leaves them financially secure. Joy, however, hides from her daughter her desire to be with a man and her unhappiness with their quiet life. When she falls in love with Berris, a fellow expat from Montserrat, the household turns upside down as the relationship between Joy and Berris leaves Jinx feeling rejected. Berris's friend Lemon steps into the fraught situation and provides comfort for Jinx. But there are dark places in all of these relationships and when tragedy occurs, there's more than enough blame to be shared and even more difficult forgiveness to be rendered. Somehow, each character is simultaneously innocent and guilty.As told by Jinx, the story immerses the reader in the back stories of each character as if we are inside their heads. It's a genuinely strong and sorrowful read.
    • 4/5
      “A Cupboard Full of Coats” is a book about domestic violence that focuses more on thoughts and actions than plot. What do you do and think and say when your best friend is an abuser? What do you do and think and say when your mother is the abused? And what do you do with all the secrets and the pain that still linger many years later?Domestic violence is not an original topic; it has been covered in many books and movies. But Edwards has taken the ordinary and made it extraordinary. There is much about the book that is wonderful. The characters are complex and utterly believable. It is richly atmospheric with the culture and dialect of both the West Indies and East London. And perhaps what is most remarkable is the structure the author uses. The story slips back and forth in time, with nothing in the past or in the present quite making sense, but slowly unraveling, slowly revealing, until it is fully told. It is mysterious and tense and laden with emotion. And when the author explains the cupboard full of coats of the title, it is rich with symbolism and heartbreakingly perfect. Amazingly, “A Cupboard Full of Coats” is the author’s debut novel. She is a remarkable talent and wholly deserving of the Booker nomination.
    • 3/5
      If you wanted to count on one hand how many times a group of people can make wrong choices, A Cupboard Full of Coats will have you running out of fingers rapidly!In a nutshell, this is the story of Jinx and how, as a teenager she watched her beautiful mother become a victim of her lover, Berris; his friend Lemon; and finally of Jinx herself. There is nothing new in the domestic violence theme of Cupboards - it is and always will be heart-breakingly sad that many women suffer this fate, regardless of whether it is of their own choice or not. When children are involved it is doublely sad, and I found the story moving, if not completely convincing.First of all, Jinx seemed to have a few too many problems for a child who, except for 4 months during Berris's stay, had a wonderfully close and stable relationship with her mother. In my book, dysfunctional family relations have long reaching effects from a young age, and although teens can be unpredictable, when it comes to the crunch, early childhood experiences override short term chaos. I'm sure there are many example to disprove this theory, but there you have it.Secondly, I found minor editorial errors that, although may be missed by some, annoyed my Booker Prize shortlist sensibilities (sorry, but these do matter). Worst example being the fact that Jinx found Lemon's cooking 'compelling', and on the next page she found her son's eyes 'compelling'. What's that about? If you want your readers to empathise with your characters, you simple have to do better than that.Do I think you should read this book? Yes, the storyline is intense, real, and moves along to a ... well, I won't disclose the conclusion, but I do applaud the effort and encourage a writer of this, her first novel.
    • 4/5
      It's 14 years since teenage Jinx's mother was brutally killed by her fiance in Hackney, London. Now the murderer's best friend, and Jinx's former inappropriate crush, shows up on her doorstep. They spend a weekend talking and drinking, while he cooks Caribbean comfort food, and reveal to each other their (unwarranted) feelings of culpability in the murder.Although this wasn't the most fascinating or compelling of books, for the most part I enjoyed listening to A Cupboard Full of Coats and having the story disclosed, bit by bit. I particularly commend the reader, Adjoa Andoh, who smoothly transitioned between a pretty straightforward British narrator, a working class/East End London accent, and various Caribbean voices. Between her skill here, and the well-rounded characters, A Cupboard Full of Coats felt fresh and different.Rating: 4 stars. Good job, Yvette Edwards, in getting your debut novel nominated for the Booker Prize.
    • 4/5
      Described as "a poignant family drama and a gripping mystery", this was an intense read. ALERT - Spoiler: Since her mother's death, Jinx is an orphan dealing with her mother's things and her memories. The cupboard/closet is full of Jinx's mother's coats, beautiful; coats, each one a gift from her boyfriend, given after he beat her.
    • 4/5
      I found it hard to put the book down! A love story in more than one sense - cruel, tender and heartbreaking all in one captivating read!
    • 4/5
      fiction (1997 London; some characters speak in Jamaican? vernacular, for true).
      sensory-rich prose and skillful storytelling make the unraveling of Jinx's mother's story an engrossing read, putting me in mind of Toni Morrison's style but (thankfully) requiring much less analysis. Maybe the descriptions of her undertaker/embalming job weren't as accurate as I'd like (in my experience, no amount of skill in cosmetic application can ever make a corpse appear natural), but generally would recommend for book clubs and such.