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Interior Life
by Katherine Blake
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Baen (1990-08-01)
ISBN: 0671720104
EAN: 9780671720100
Dewy Decimal #: 813.54
Paperback: 313 pages
SKU: 07783
Condition: Used: Good
Comments: Book in good condition
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Customer Reviews
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fantasy and mundanity intertwined
Rating  (4)
Date: 2007-02-28
A long-time favourite and 'comfort book' for me. Bored housewife Susan discovers her fantasy life is epic fantasy, and the characters and story in her head illuminate and expand her understanding of her 'real life'. Susan's tribulations with the PTA, her husband's promotion and her kids intertwine with the struggle against the Dark in a fantasy land. Blake makes both stories gripping.
What I particularly love about the story is that fantasising is presented as something that strengthens Susan, gives her perspective on her problems and shows her how the issues of her real life are as meaningful as any epic battle. Too often fantasy or daydreaming is seen as escapism, as something that a girl must give up as she enters the adult world, as if the only way to embrace life is to abandon dreams.
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An excellent fantasy
Rating (4)
Date: 2005-06-02
3 out of 3 customers found this reveiw helpful
It has been a few years since I read this book, and I was only recently reminded of it. I thought I would try to find other books by this author and discovered that the author's name is a pseudonym for Dorothy J. Heydt, whose works I have read and enjoyed for years in Sword & Sorceress.
I very much enjoyed the blending of fantasy and reality in this book. I liked the idea of the creeping darkness and the bioluminescent plants--heck the whole biology of the darkened part of the world fascinated me so much that I was inspired to work out the ecosystem for a vaguely similar world of my own.
After fifteen years, I don't remember much of the plot of this book, but I do remember getting a great deal of enjoyment from reading it, and I remember being fascinated with the world and the characters the author created. Definitely do buy this book!
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An interesting experimental fantasy. 3.5 stars
Rating  (3)
Date: 2003-12-29
3 out of 4 customers found this reveiw helpful
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This is an interesting experimental fantasy: the conceit is that
Sue, a housewife and mother of three who's thoroughly sick of
cleaning her kitchen (etc. etc.), turns loose her lively imagination
and creates an Interior Life: a medieval good vs. evil (Darkness
vs. Light) fantasy that's a bit generic, but has some lively and
clever touches. Then the characters in Sue's imagination start
giving her advice in RL....
In RL/OTL, Sue's husband Fred is bucking for promotion to
manager at the local Home Depot. Fred's boss's boss is an
unctuous womanizer who comes on to Sue at a dinner party. She
swats him down; he keeps trying. It gets quite weird. Sue never
forgets that she's making up her interior voices -- she doesn't
think she's going crazy -- but she takes her characters' imaginary
lives (and advice) pretty seriously. Of course, Sue herself is an
imaginary character, created by a pseudonymous author....
Heydt intermixes fantasy and real-life with no typographic
indication of what's what [note 1]. This works pretty well, but can be
confusing and, at times, precious. As I got deeper into the book,
I got more interested in Sue and started skipping over the more
generic fantasy episodes -- though the fantasy does come to a
rousing and effective finish. And Sue's a new woman: she's
redecorated her house, reinvigorated her marriage, and gotten
the PTA involved in building a new computer lab at her kids'
school. The weird womanizing boss is still around, too.
The Interior Life was Heydt's first novel, and is to some extent
apprentice-work ("There is a great host," Denis said, "several
hundreds at least, on cats, coming slowly toward us."). I don't
regret reading it, but would add a mild caveat to the fulsome
praise in rasfw that led me to read the book. Perhaps I should add
that I'm just an occasional fantasy-reader.
Note 1). Apparently the author intended the typefaces to be
different.
Happy reading--
Peter D. Tillman
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The Interior Life: A Quest
Rating (4)
Date: 2003-02-04
3 out of 3 customers found this reveiw helpful
I really enjoyed this book. In fact, this is my second copy, the first having been loaned out until disappearance. Susan, a house-wife, who married straight out of high-school and had three children prontito, has just sent her youngest child off to school.
Her house is a Pit of Despair, in terms of clean up. As she starts cleaning up the kitchen Yet Again, she looks out the window and sees a very different view. She starts hearing the thoughts of Marianella, a servant to a noble lady with the Sight. They've just travelled secretly to join the lady's brother, who is mysteriously missing, although he's left the Sea-Keep in appalling condition.
The first thing Marianella does is clean up the keep while Susan experiences it as well. However, Susan discovers that her own house work is a great deal much forwarder.
On the side of Demoura, the land that Susan is imagining, there is the fight of Good against Evil; on Susan's more prosaic side of our world, she fights a less frightening fight of Good against Evil, by helping her husband secure a better job, dealing with some sexual harrassment, etc. Raising children. It's still Good against Evil.
I enjoyed this book immensely because it was entertaining & empowering. It spoke of strong friendships, improved relationships and improving circumstances. (It also talks about how to cook rice, plan dinner parties, dress like a lady, and deal with someone who is hitting on you.)
While I like Susan, we don't share much in common. I married 8 years after college. I waited to have children. I have a career- but I've still had to deal with the day to day details of housework, and raising children.
I really liked the way that she, and her "imaginary friends" worked things out.
I wouldn't mind having some of the same friends myself- Especially when facing a sink yet again full of dirty dishes!
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A true story
Rating  (5)
Date: 2001-11-15
3 out of 3 customers found this reveiw helpful
Every once in a while, you come across a story that just reads 'true'. Not true as in true crime story (which would be difficult in a fantasy, but 'true' in a way that touches deeply, and stays with you for a long time.
This is one of those stories.
Not one to miss.
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