Many of the short stories in Elizabeth McCracken’s HERE’S YOUR HAT WHAT’S YOUR HURRY (1993) contain characters so abnormal that they are seen in circus sideshows. However, the author’s focus is on the response of ordinary people to their encounters with the extraordinary. The subject of McCracken’s first novel is the same, but the approach is different. THE GIANT’S HOUSE is appropriately subtitled “A Romance.” Not only is it a story of romantic love, but it is also the kind of fiction which, freed from the demands of realism, can reveal a higher truth.
The title character of THE GIANT’S HOUSE is James Carlson Sweatt, a young boy with an endocrine disorder that causes exceptional growth and in time will kill him, but the real protagonist is the narrator, Peggy Cort, a young, unmarried, small town librarian. At first Peggy sees James as the ideal patron, an intellectually curious person who always returns books on time. However, she soon realizes that …show more content…
While other eleven-year-old boys rarely come to the library, he is an avid reader. Moreover, he almost invariably returns his books on time and in good condition, and, best of all, he is one of the few patrons who makes use of Peggy’s skills as a reference librarian. As soon as she recognizes these virtues in James, Peggy is already half in love with him.
Yet when she comes to know him better, Peggy sees that although James may be unique as far as his appearance is concerned, the two of them have even more in common than intellectual curiosity and a passion for books—they are isolated in a small town that only pretends to accept anyone who is different. In Brewsterville, James is viewed not as a human being, but as a freak, while Peggy is seen not as a living, breathing woman, but as a functionary, a useful piece of furniture, as she comments with some
The title character of THE GIANT’S HOUSE is James Carlson Sweatt, a young boy with an endocrine disorder that causes exceptional growth and in time will kill him, but the real protagonist is the narrator, Peggy Cort, a young, unmarried, small town librarian. At first Peggy sees James as the ideal patron, an intellectually curious person who always returns books on time. However, she soon realizes that …show more content…
While other eleven-year-old boys rarely come to the library, he is an avid reader. Moreover, he almost invariably returns his books on time and in good condition, and, best of all, he is one of the few patrons who makes use of Peggy’s skills as a reference librarian. As soon as she recognizes these virtues in James, Peggy is already half in love with him.
Yet when she comes to know him better, Peggy sees that although James may be unique as far as his appearance is concerned, the two of them have even more in common than intellectual curiosity and a passion for books—they are isolated in a small town that only pretends to accept anyone who is different. In Brewsterville, James is viewed not as a human being, but as a freak, while Peggy is seen not as a living, breathing woman, but as a functionary, a useful piece of furniture, as she comments with some