大米版權書訊

《抱歉，抱歉！》

《Apologize, Apologize!》by Elizabeth Kelly

Fiction/ English/ 336 pages/ / March 2009/ Knopf, Canada

Foreign rights sold: Italy to Adelphi/ Holland to ECI/ Germany to Heyne/ Dutch to House of Books/ US to Twelve, Hachette Book Group

Film option sold to Daryl Roth

這是一本相當成功、而且幸運的新人小說。07年春天，作者的經紀人才把書稿送給出版社評估，不到一周，加拿大Knopf和一年只出12本嚴選好書的美國Twelve兩家重要的出版社便愛不釋手，各自以Pre-empt的方式迅速搶下版權。其他海外版權順利推進，電影版權也賣給美國知名的劇作製片家Daryl Roth。

書出後，佳評如潮，除了讀書部落、報章雜誌和其他作家紛紛推薦，美國國家書評獎(NBCC’s Nona Balakian prize)最新得獎書評家Ron Charles也在華盛頓郵報上以專文介紹，還有出版者周刊Publishers Weekly的專欄作家Bethanne Patrick在她的書評部落上以AA等級推薦這本小說，使得這本出自加拿大資深雜誌編輯之手的處女作小說獲得極高的能見度。

小說講的是富家子弟柯里．佛勒內根（Collie Flanagan）的成長故事，由柯里第一人稱敘述他的出身和家庭。柯里住在美國東岸麻州的海濱大宅，宅裡養了一大群狗，海邊有各種鳥類，風聲、濤音、動物叫聲混雜人聲，柯里說他像是住在一支遊行隊伍裡。

柯里的外公是報業鉅亨，錢多得會煩，所以一家人都過著優渥的生活。基本上，除了柯里，佛勒內根一家都是怪胎，或者說好聽一點，是特立獨行，但帶著自我毀滅的性格。柯里的母親愛狗成痴，甚至將兒子取名為「牧羊犬」(Collie)，所以家人有時戲稱柯里「萊西」。她也痴迷共產黨員，收集相關物件的狂熱勁兒就像別的婦女收集各種尺寸形狀的收納瓶罐一樣。母親脾氣難以捉摸，柯里說「她有一種會令花兒顫抖的特異功能。」

柯里的父親天生懂得享受人生，人又長得俊俏，他不是剛喝完一杯，就是準備再喝一杯，柯里很小的時候就知道父親常提著空皮箱出差，每次回來就送給母親一個安瑪麗絲花的球莖。

柯里是家裡的乖乖牌。「兒時，我最超過的行為是在上午十點以前喝百事可樂。」但他的安靜順從並不討母親歡心，母親鍾愛的反而是古靈精怪，漂亮得會讓人脫褲子的弟弟賓果（Bingo）。柯里和賓果原有可能發展成該隱和亞伯情節，但柯里也很愛他的弟弟，不只愛他，還經常罩他，為他擔罪。

大宅裡還有一個類精神病患、熱衷賽鴿的舅舅湯姆，這三個大人在家裡，「連一隻麻雀從樹上摔下來都會引來激烈爭辯。」於是，在這個家，柯里的低調隨俗顯得跟大家格格不入。母親說她真希望他有不俗的見解，父親則勸他放輕鬆一點，「如果我是你，我會像張草坪上的躺椅一樣閒懶過活。」而柯里自況「我存在的目的在反駁一句俗諺：『人不會因困窘而死。』」

小說的前半部就是這樣喧鬧、詼諧，有點兒冷。但中間以後，故事轉為傷感。柯里因為無法阻止一椿悲劇的發生，致使家人對他的嘲諷變得愈來愈殘酷，他也愈來愈迷失。這個富有的年輕人為了不想變得懦弱和一無是處，他離開大宅，嘗試當社工、海外志工和醫生以尋找出路。小說後半段在柯里的自我追尋中，讀者看到主角內心的衝突逐漸和緩並轉為自我接受，從小沒有被好好對待（幾乎被「精神虐待」）的柯里終於獲得救贖。故事以喜劇開始，喜劇結束。

新人作家依莉沙白．凱利（Elizabeth Kelly）原是加拿大某個雜誌的資深編輯暨記者，得過許多個雜誌獎。雖然是加拿大人，但出版者周刊的專欄作家Bethanne Patrick稱讚她把美國東岸的景致和上流社會家庭的生活習性寫得維妙維肖。Ron Charles則是在華盛頓郵報上的書評說：「(書中)這些家人是你無法忍受住在一起，但卻不能不繼續往下讀，看他們發生什麼事。」美國圖書館協會的Booklist雜誌認為凱利兼容Daniel Wallace和John Irving的文風。加拿大新聞媒體The Gazzette的書評指出，在這本嬉笑怒罵、瘋瘋顛顛的小說中，凱利想要傳達一些更深沈、令人不安的事實。她描寫富豪子弟任性、荒唐的行徑，卻不嚴厲批評，或許我們每個人心中其實都渴望過那樣我行我素，讓別人來收拾爛攤子的生活。不過，故事最後，凱利還是給任性的人苦頭受，受盡排擠的乖乖牌柯里終於找到他存在的價值。

Praise for APOLOGIZE, APOLOGIZE!

“To catch the spirit of Elizabeth Kelly's first novel, you've got to scream the title in hysterical fury: "Apologize, Apologize!" The subject of all that chiding is long-suffering Collie Flanagan, the only sane member of a wealthy family of alcoholics, Marxists, playboys, media barons and pigeon racers. As described in Kelly's deliciously witty prose, these are people you can't imagine living with, but can't resist reading about. The author is a Canadian journalist with an acute sense of absurdity and the arch style of a modern-day Kinsley Amis . . . Ploddingly normal and responsible, the teenaged Collie toils away like Marilyn Munster among creatures of monstrous self-absorption . . . The central joke of this section, which Kelly manages brilliantly, is that all the ne'er-do-wells in the family can agree on only one thing: Collie is a terrible disappointment . . . But halfway through "Apologize, Apologize!" the darker themes running beneath this comedy suddenly break through . . . Although the novel never entirely loses its comic tone, it becomes a far more contemplative, even plaintive, story of a young man struggling to redeem himself, to keep from being ‘some useless rich kid who everyone thinks is a coward’ . . . [APOLOGIZE, APOLOGIZE! is] good enough to overcome its flaws and witty enough to make us want more from Kelly.” --- Ron Charles, Washington Post

“Kelly excels at portraying a quirky family with a penchant for self-destruction. She makes it easy to love the Flanagans and easier to despise them in their various shades of ugly . . . every page is meaningful, every line vital. And Kelly’s language is always deft and occasionally breathtaking; the pure, stimulating beauty of her words leaves no need for apologies.” -- Andi Dienh

“At first, as the unconstrained clan do their hysterically dysfunctional thing on their island estate, it may seem that Kelly is overplaying the quirky card. . . . Kelly does somehow manage to keep this ‘dissonant soundtrack’ to a ‘collective insurgency’ just the right side of caricature, though. . . . For all the novel's considerable comic brio, Kelly aims for and achieves something deeper and more unsettling, depicting the distortion of values that extreme wealth can cause and showing, without getting heavy-handed about it, how fun is often something pursued as a distraction from deep pain. Best of all, she gives the Flanagans’ reckless glamour its due. After all, the success of a story like this depends on the fact that somewhere in all of us is the wish to be a bit like the Flanagans -- free to indulge our every whim, happy to let someone else clean up after us.” —The Gazette (Montreal)

“APOLOGIZE, APOLOGIZE! . . . brims and bubbles with the effervescence of Kelly’s hard work. Well-written and clever.” -- Ottawa Citizen

“There’s no denying . . . she is funny.” -- Edmonton Journal

“[A] comic tale of a bizarre Massachusetts family.” -- The Vancouver Sun

“Dave Eggers fans should enjoy Canadian journalist Kelly’s rambunctious first novel about the guilt-ridden scion of a super-rich, eccentric Martha’s Vineyard family.” -- Kirkus Reviews

“Part Grey Gardens and part The Royal Tenenbaums . . . beautifully written . . . Kelly is a gifted writer . . . Collie’s quest is worth reading for the elegant prose alone.” -- Publishers Weekly

“First time novelist Kelly displays an unrelenting quirkiness that begs comparison with Daniel Wallace and John Irving, both of whom have large contingents of rabid fans. Even the dogs and pigeons have personality to spare in this meandering story of the ‘fantastic Flanagans,’ a well-to-do family living on Martha’s Vineyard . . . Slightly surreal . . . Whimsical . . . will appeal to lovers of the offbeat.” —Booklist

“Listen up, readers . . . Meet the Flanagans, a quasifunctional family that might give Jonathan Franzen pause . . . Kelly is a clever, witty wordsmith with a penchant for apt if over-the-top metaphors that are laugh-out-loud funny.” —Library Journal

“When I read this novel, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry; so I did both—as the graced and disgraced life of Collie Flanagan came roaring at me, all mad comedy and pure grief with the brio of an Irish pub at closing time. And then I bowed my head, because this fine a story told this well doesn't happen every day or every decade. With the linguistic mastery of a Carol Shields or a Julia Glass, Elizabeth Kelly's debut novel comes down hard and strikes the bell.” -- Jacquelyn Mitchard, author of The Deep End of the Ocean

“In this unflinching and funny debut, Elizabeth Kelly deftly paints her tale in alternating shades of lush whimsy and hard-won ferocity. APOLOGIZE, APOLOGIZE! reads as if Padgett Powell's Edisto had a first cousin from New England who was wealthier, more eccentric, more gothic and more drunk.” -- Mark Winegardner, author of Crooked River Burning and The Godfather Returns

“By the age of twenty, Collie Flanagan, the protagonist of Elizabeth Kelly’s splendid first novel, APOLOGIZE, APOLOGIZE!, has been tested by fate to the limit. The startling and painful wit of Collie’s voice makes Holden Caulfield sound like a kindergartner, and lays waste to the acres of banalities and clichés that usually accompany stories about redemption. Rich with moral nuance and narrative surprise, this is a book as delightful as it is moving —in short, a magnificent debut. Ms. Kelly is a big talent and the book is deeply humane and subtle as well as wildly funny .” -- Elizabeth Frank, author of Cheat and Charmer and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Louise Bogan: A Portrait.

“This novel starts with an enjoyable Celtic kitchen brawl of one-line put-downs in the heart of a family, and then moves its gears, through malice and disaster, to a quiet tone in which the protagonist finally learns to live with himself. It's a tour de force of energy and spirit.” -- Peter Pouncey, author of Rules for Old Men Waiting and former president of Amherst College

“The Flanagans are as outrageous as any you will ever find and the travails of Collie trying to negotiate the dual mine fields of life and his own family are the center of this brilliant debut novel. At times hilarious, tragic and poignant but always with a sharp edge, Elizabeth Kelly keeps the reader both mesmerized and laughing at a world both absurd and sad but always filled with the possibility of redemption. Think of a young John Barth and enjoy.” -- Bill Cusumano, Nicola's Books; Ann Arbor, MI

“An imaginative and energetic triumph. What you hear from the onset of APOLOGIZE, APOLOGIZE! is the delicious sound of a gifted novelist taking flight for the first time. Even sitting on a table with its covers closed, Elizabeth Kelly’s novel seems to buck and heave with its deliriously talkative and unforgivingly articulate characters. (Think of Dostoevsky on laughing gas.)” -- David Gilmour, author of The Film Club

“A warm and wonderful tale with smart, sassy, yet gentle sensitivity. Elizabeth Kelly writes with an original rhythmic style that ushers us in as we turn the first page of this magnificent story of family ties, devotion, understanding and acceptance. I loved this book!" -- Daryl Roth, producer of August: Osage County, Proof, and Three Tall Women