LitArk » Books » Art

Penelope James - Getting Rid of Ian: A Memoir of Poison, Pills, and Mortal Sins

Here you can read online Penelope James - Getting Rid of Ian: A Memoir of Poison, Pills, and Mortal Sins full text of the book (entire story) in english for free. Download pdf and epub, get meaning, cover and reviews about this ebook. year: 2016, publisher: BookBaby, genre: Art. Description of the work, (preface) as well as reviews are available. Best literature library LitArk.com created for fans of good reading and offers a wide selection of genres:

Romance novel Science fiction Adventure Detective Science History Home and family Prose Art Politics Computer Non-fiction Religion Business Children Humor

Choose a favorite category and find really read worthwhile books. Enjoy immersion in the world of imagination, feel the emotions of the characters or learn something new for yourself, make an fascinating discovery.

Book:
Getting Rid of Ian: A Memoir of Poison, Pills, and Mortal Sins
Author:
Penelope James
Publisher:
BookBaby
Genre:
Books / Art
Year:
2016
Rating:
4 / 5
Favourites:
Add to favourites
Your mark:
- 80
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5

Description
Author's other books
Similar books

Getting Rid of Ian: A Memoir of Poison, Pills, and Mortal Sins: summary, description and annotation

We offer to read an annotation, description, summary or preface (depends on what the author of the book "Getting Rid of Ian: A Memoir of Poison, Pills, and Mortal Sins" wrote himself). If you haven't found the necessary information about the book — write in the comments, we will try to find it.

The narrator, Penny/Pennie, a knowing child, lives with sister Anne, flamboyant Mexican-American Mummy/Tita and retired Royal Navy Commander Daddy in an English seaside village. Tita, a plane crash survivor, feels she has lost out in life. Daddy is an inventor, but his inventions fail to catch on and money runs out. Tita takes the girls to live in Mexico City where Ian, a married man, falls in love with her. She divorces Daddy and marries Ian in a civil ceremony, thus scandalizing and alienating her from family, society and the Catholic Church.

After marrying Tita, Ian is no longer the jovial uncle he had appeared to be. Unbalanced and irascible, this former spymaster exerts a hypnotic control over Tita. He terrorizes the girls, makes life unbearable for them, and his addiction to drugssedatives and sleeping pillssends him over the edge.

Motivated by a great-aunt and a family friend, the girls plot to do away with Ian using witchcraft, homemade poison, drugs, and voodoo. Their efforts have mixed results. Ian suffers a coronary thrombosis; he overdoses; a car runs over him. His drug addiction turns him into the Zombie. The Zombie/Ian creates havoc, and the girls and Mummy live in fear of his destructive actions. As the Zombies actions escalate, the girls are forced to make some drastic decisions that will affect the rest of their lives.

Penelope James: author's other books

Who wrote Getting Rid of Ian: A Memoir of Poison, Pills, and Mortal Sins? Find out the surname, the name of the author of the book and a list of all author's works by series.

Getting Rid of Ian: A Memoir of Poison, Pills, and Mortal Sins — read online for free the complete book (whole text) full work

Below is the text of the book, divided by pages. System saving the place of the last page read, allows you to conveniently read the book "Getting Rid of Ian: A Memoir of Poison, Pills, and Mortal Sins" online for free, without having to search again every time where you left off. Put a bookmark, and you can go to the page where you finished reading at any time.

Light

Font size:

↓

↑

Reset

Interval:

↓

↑

Bookmark:

Make

Getting Rid of Ian

A Memoir of Poison, Pills, and Mortal Sins

Author: Penelope James

Cover and Book Design: Marty Safir, Double M Graphics

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under U.S. Copyright Law, no part of this book may be reprinted, reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed, electronic or other form without the express written approval of the Publisher.

All the characters, incidents, events, and information in this book are based on actual people, happenings, and conversations. To protect identities, some names have been changed. Both English and American spelling are used according to where events took place or used interchangeably to indicate transition from English to American spelling.

Events and conversations are based on letters, accounts, and journals that I kept from the age of eight to seventeen. Four chapters have been published as short stories: Much Ado about a Box as A Present from Me to Me in Commonties.com in 2008; Lord of the Ocean as Farewell to England in The Mexico City News in April, 1960; When Is Murder Not a Mortal Sin? in A Year in Ink Anthology #8; Salting Ian as Witchcraft in Memoirabilia Magazine #5.

ISBN: 978-0-9967538-1-4

Published by

Carlyon Books
San Diego
www.carlyonbooks.com

2016 Penelope James

In memory of my inimitable parents, Tita and Jimmy.
For my sister and co-conspirator Anne
and for Christopher who made this possible.

Contents

LEAVE IT UP TO GOD

MEXICO CITY, 1955

We must get rid of him, I tell my younger sister Anne.

Were in my bedroom with the door closed, but Im whispering. Ian might hear ushe has ears everywhere. Lets pray for him to die.

Thats a mortal sin, Anne says with horror in her voice.

No, it isnt. All well do is ask God to make it happen sooner rather than later.

We cant ask God for things like that, Anne says.

Id like to shake hershes so stubborn. Drive some sense into her head. Shes ten. Im almost two years older, and I know whats best. If Ian dies, Mummy wont be in a state of sin anymore, and Ians family will probably forgive him for marrying Mummy. And he wont go to hell because his daughters a nun.

It still doesnt seem right, she says.

Come on, Anne, I say, like Daddy did when he wanted her to understand something. Think of what happened in the war. Both sides prayed to God for victory. We won because the Americans joined us, and there were more people praying on our side. Why dont we leave it up to God?

Anne gives in.

We go to the church and light candles and kneel, but Im not comfortable praying for Ian to die. It isnt as easy as talking about it. So, all I ask is, Please, dear God, just get rid of Ian.

Three days later, Ian has a coronary thrombosis.

See, I tell Anne. God is on our side.

BLAME IT ON THE WAR

ENGLAND, 1950

Who knows what got into Mummy and Daddy when they met in New York City during the Second World War? Mummy fell for Daddy, a Commander in the Royal Navy, because he looked so distinguished in his uniform. Daddy thought Mummy was the most attractive girl hed seen in a long timeand he was fussyand he found her very funny. They liked each other enough to get married three weeks later.

We did things in wartime that we wouldnt dream of doing in peacetime, Mummy tells me. Like marrying someone you hardly knew.

When Daddy took off his Royal Navy uniform, Mummy didnt like him half as much as before. And when he brought Mummy to England, he didnt find her as funny as before.

So far, thats what Mummy has told me.

Im with her in her bedroom, watching her put on her face before we go out to buy my school uniforms. Most of the time, she sits at her dressing table; it has a skirt with pink taffeta flounces, and the top is covered with perfume bottles, her grandmothers silver hair set, and a three-sided mirror so she can take a jolly good look at herself.

You see, I married a stranger, she says. A man eighteen years older who came from a very different background.

Mummy is American, but shes also half-Mexican. A long time ago, her American father went to Mexico as a foreign correspondent and met her mother there. Mummy was born in New York and grew up in Mexico City. Her name is Carlota, but everyone calls her Tita. Shes not like other mummies because of her Bad Leg from a plane crash when she was twenty-one. Thats why she has to take care of herself and cant hurry in the morning. She keeps the pieces of the crucifix she was holding when the plane crashed inside a case under her pillow because shes sure it saved her life.

She smiles at me. Your daddy was in a hurry to be married before he was ordered back to England. So he didnt give me time to think about what I was getting into. I spent my wedding night crying my eyes out.

Did Daddy make you cry?

No, your daddy tried to console me and he was so kind, I decided to make the best of it.

Mummy tilts her head and looks at her cheek in the side mirror. But I really blame my mother. She wouldnt let me postpone the wedding.

Granny-in-Mexico? Thats what Anne and I call her because we also have Granny-in-England.

She told me, Youre twenty-six and youd better not waste this chance to marry a Royal Navy officer. And she hadnt taken three airplanes and a train to travel from Mexico to New York City for nothing.

She puts her elbow on her dressing table and rests her chin on her hand, as if shes thinking. Though looking back, I needed someone like your daddy who understood me. Hes the one man, apart from my father, who appreciates my mind.

Mummys mind is very important to her. Shes always talking about how she has a lot on her mind, and she will go out of her mind if Daddy doesnt do something to make money, and how she needs to stimulate her mind, which is why she goes up to London whenever she can.

Mummy studies her face in the mirror as if she doesnt like what she sees. You have to suffer to be beautiful, she says and picks up her tweezers and plucks her eyebrow.

I go Ouch! inside. I dont want to be beautiful and have to suffer like she does.

Mummy suffers a lot. Because Daddy goes around with his head in the clouds. And because she cant see her parents in Mexico as often as shed like. And because the plane crash ruined her life and gave her a Bad Leg.

She picks up a pencil and draws her eyebrows where she likes them to be. Our love had to grow after we were married because there wasnt time before. And, of course, your daddy gave me my two lovely daughters.

Im seven, with long fair hair and dreamy blue eyes like Daddys. My name is Penelope, Penny for short. My parents named me after the HMS Penelope because they met at a cocktail party on board that ship. I was born right here in Rustington after they arrived in a convoy.

My sister Anne was born up north. Mummy calls her a Lancashire lassie. Shes five, and pretty, with a round face and golden curls. But when she doesnt get her own way, she throws a tantrum. Grace, our help, says, Who would believe a little angel like her would be such a handful?

Most of the time, I try to behave myself, but I have a big imagination. Thats where a younger sister comes in useful. Anne will do anything I ask her to do. Like dumping water on Grace after she tells me off. Or picking a fight with a boy who was mean to me. Or helping me build a prison behind the hedge where were going to hold him captive along with the slugs and snails and worms. But Im glad when Annes not around because then I have all the attention for myself.

Light

Font size:

↓

↑

Reset

Interval:

↓

↑

Bookmark:

Make

Similar books «Getting Rid of Ian: A Memoir of Poison, Pills, and Mortal Sins»

Look at similar books to Getting Rid of Ian: A Memoir of Poison, Pills, and Mortal Sins. We have selected literature similar in name and meaning in the hope of providing readers with more options to find new, interesting, not yet read works.

Cathy Glass

A Family Torn Apart: Three sisters and a dark secret that threatens to separate them for ever

Dr. Greg

The Corporal Works of Mommy (and Daddy Too)

Justin Batt

Daddy Saturday: How to Be an Intentional Dad to Raise Good Kids Who Become Great Adults

T. D. Jakes

Daddy Loves His Girls: Discover a Love Your Heavenly Father Offers that an Earthly Father Cant

Greg Wright

Daddy Dates: Four Daughters, One Clueless Dad, and His Quest to Win Their Hearts: The Road Map for Any Dad to Raise a Strong and Confident Daughter

Karen Kingsbury

Lets Have a Daddy Day

Walker Caryn

Tell me youre sorry, daddy: two scared little girls. one abusive father. one survived against all odds to tell their story

Meagan Fink

Change in Plans

Young

Daddy: a Memoir

Esquivel

Como agua para chocolate

Tita Chico

The Experimental Imagination: Literary Knowledge and Science in the British Enlightenment

Rob Teigen

88 Great Daddy-Daughter Dates. Fun, Easy & Creative Ways to Build Memories Together

Reviews about «Getting Rid of Ian: A Memoir of Poison, Pills, and Mortal Sins»

Discussion, reviews of the book Getting Rid of Ian: A Memoir of Poison, Pills, and Mortal Sins and just readers' own opinions. Leave your comments, write what you think about the work, its meaning or the main characters. Specify what exactly you liked and what you didn't like, and why you think so.