An intense roller-coaster ride into the abyss, MAN CRAZY charts the fall and rise of teenager Ingrid Boone, abandoned by her father, moving from town to town, taking what she can get and always giving too much in return. This is a novel about the horrors waiting at the end of the road for the innocent, but in the end it is about one girl's realisation that men don't make you more real, that pain isn't an integral part of normal life.
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[The story I want to tell began in upstate New York, in the Chautauqua Mountains, in August 1972] ***(Virago, 5 August 1999 (first published 1997), bought from Amazon)
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Man Crazy is dark, disturbing and intense - a book that will stay with me for a long time.
Ingrid is a fantastic narrator, her voice is compelling and I found myself hooked as I listened to her recount the dark, unsettling turns her life takes after her father's fall from grace and she's forced to go on the run with her mother.
The characterisation is spot on; both Ingrid and her mother are compelling, brilliantly written and sympathetic. Her mother is a terrible role model, a useless drunk but she is still very sympathetic, despite or maybe because of her many flaws.
Man Crazy reminded me of the more recent novel The Girls by Emma Cline which draws inspiration from the infamous Manson family. I wonder what inspired JCO?
Man Crazy is a book about damaged people and how easily lives spiral out of control. Dark and unforgettable.
