Sign in with Facebook
Loading...
9th out of 13 books
—
19 voters
A Cupboard Full of Coats
by
Yvvette Edwards (Goodreads Author)
Redolent of Monica Ali and Zadie Smith, Yvvette Edwards' bold debut is a searing story of family, jealousy, and tragic betrayal. "He just knocked, that was all, knoced at the front door and waited, like the fourteen years since the night I'd killed my mother hadn't happened at all..." Fourteen years ago, Jinx' mother was brutally murdered in their East London home. Overwhe...more
Paperback, 261 pages
Published
June 16th 2011
by ONEWorld Publications
(first published 2011)
Friend Reviews
To see what your friends thought of this book,
please sign up.
Community Reviews
(showing
1-30
of
2,016)
A Cupboard Full of Coats is Edward’s debut novel which is written with surprising skill given it is her first publication. I was impressed with the way the story was woven to keep the reader interested and turning the page for more.
The novel setting is East London and all the characters are black; however this is not a story about race rather it centres on a mother-daughter relationship and it explores the emotions of jealousy, blame, guilt, and forgiveness.
Jinx was a mere teenager when her mom...more
The novel setting is East London and all the characters are black; however this is not a story about race rather it centres on a mother-daughter relationship and it explores the emotions of jealousy, blame, guilt, and forgiveness.
Jinx was a mere teenager when her mom...more
This is a powerful story. Jinx, a woman in her early thirties, is living alone in the East London home she grew up in with her mother, when Lemon, a friend of her mother’s, unexpectedly knocks on the door. It has been 14 years since Jinx’s mother was murdered, and 14 years since Jinx has seen Lemon. Jinx invites Lemon in and they begin a three-day remembrance of the turbulent time leading up to her mother’s murder, when Jinx’s mother fell in love with Berris, Lemon’s oldest friend.
The chapters...more
The chapters...more
This was a very dark book and Jinx was a very damaged main character and narrator. Jinx and Lemon spend the weekend sharing their perspectives on Jinx's mother's murder with each other. Through flashbacks, it becomes apparent how Jinx grew into such a cold, almost robotic adult. She is not a good mother and the part when her four-year old son comes over for a visit was hard to read. I was left wondering how someone like Jinx came to get married and have a son in the first place. However, the foc...more
A Cupboard Full of Coats is Yvvette Edwards' first novel, and I'm happy to see that it was made available via an independent publisher, Oneworld. I went to their website and found a few more little gems I'm probably going to check out in the near future. I love that Indie publishers are represented on this year's Booker Prize longlist; let's hope that this is a trend that continues well into the future. Everyone pretty much seems to love this book.
I liked Cupboard Full of Coats with some reserv...more
I liked Cupboard Full of Coats with some reserv...more
Jinx is a woman in crisis, though she doesn't know it.
A child of an older father, who died before his daughter really got to know him, and a loving (if needy) mother, Jinx had a child hood of loneliness and loss. Her single school friend is more of a 'frenemie'. Jinx is a young woman who is at loose ends and unsure of her place in her world. At sixteen, her loss becomes complete when her mother is murdered after a short, mostly unhappy relationship. Jinx decides from then on that she can depend...more
Jinx is not an immediately likeable protagonist, infact the opposite is true. Her past, however sad, does not excuse her hard hearted approach to those around her. The scenes with her young son Ben border on cruel as she refuses him the love and comfort he craves. Occasionally though, the facade slips and she wonders why she can't tell him she loves him. Moments like this encourage us to delve deeper into jinx's tragic past and discover more about the reasons behind her refusal to engage with ot...more
Not my typical read but I decided why not? This is a slow burner and sort of literary type book. Great for those who like absorbing narratives. It was long-listed for the Booker Prize. Edwards does a excellent job with the characterization but I found it too verbose and slightly indulgent in same parts. Lots of character self analysis (it's written in first person) and it's difficult to keep reading because the woman is full of self-hatred and that spews over into treatment of her son.
Edwards br...more
Edwards br...more
Don't want to give anything away, so all that I will say is that this book kept me up last night, and had me racing to a secluded spot this morning to continue where I left off. There were parts of the story that were difficult to read, parts that made me angry. But what made the book stand out to me was that I didn't find any of the characters to be heroic. They were all "wrong" to me. No one was a victim, in my opinion. And yet I understood the motivation behind the choices that most of them m...more
“A Cupboard Full of Coats” is a book about domestic violence that focuses more on thoughts and actions than plot. What do you do and think and say when your best friend is an abuser? What do you do and think and say when your mother is the abused? And what do you do with all the secrets and the pain that still linger many years later?
Domestic violence is not an original topic; it has been covered in many books and movies. But Edwards has taken the ordinary and made it extraordinary. There is muc...more
Domestic violence is not an original topic; it has been covered in many books and movies. But Edwards has taken the ordinary and made it extraordinary. There is muc...more
When I got to the last few pages of A Cupboard Full of Coats, I put the book down for a few minutes because I didn't want the story to end. I didn't want Jinx and Lemon to stop telling the stories that had hunted them for years. Their shared guilt and heart wrenching confessions stopped my breath and keep the pages turning. Although Yvette Edwards gave the reader a good sense of the major events that had transpired in Jinx and Lemon's lives during the 15 years following the tragedy, I was greedy...more
Yvette Edwards novel never made it from the Booker longlist to the shortlist. If so, that speaks volumes (I hope) about the quality of the books on the shortlist (although where, one might ask, is Phillip Hensher's superlative "King of the Badgers," which seriously kicks the ass of last year's Booker winner, that awful Howard Finkler novel, that I've never been able to finish...and I know plenty of other people who hated it too). Back to Yvette Edwards' novel...the release of Berris (that's a ma...more
Jinx is a beautiful but deeply troubled east Londoner born to Caribbean immigrants, whose life was shattered 14 years ago when her mother Joy was brutally murdered by Berris, her second husband and Jinx's stepfather. Jinx blames her own jealousy and spite for her mother's murder, and has shut herself off from everyone, including her ex-husband and their young son, until the day that Lemon, Berris' best friend and a man she has admired since she first met him as a teenager, knocks on her front do...more
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
Told through the eyes of Jinx, now a 30 year old mother who cannot seem to love her son or anyone else, least of all herself. 14 years after the death of her mother an old friend turns up on Jinx's doorstep and Jinx is forced to go back to the time when she is a 16 year old girl whose life is suddenly turned upside down by the introduction of her mother's jealous, domineering and violent boyfriend. Both the friend and Jinx have 14 years of guilt and other unfinished business to straighten out be...more
Oct 17, 2011
Kathleen Hagen
added it
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
2011-audio-books,
2011-mysteries
A Cupboard Full of Coats, by Yvette Edwards, a-minus, Narrated by Adjoa Andoh, Produced by W. F. Howes Company, formerly Clipper Audio, downloaded from audible.com.
Jinx’s mother was murdered 14 years previously in East London by her boy friend at the time out of jealousy-he thought she was seeing other men. Jinx felt betrayed by everyone she ever loved so would not allow anyone to get close to her. She also had not talked about the events of the night of the murder. Then an old friend of her mot...more
Jinx’s mother was murdered 14 years previously in East London by her boy friend at the time out of jealousy-he thought she was seeing other men. Jinx felt betrayed by everyone she ever loved so would not allow anyone to get close to her. She also had not talked about the events of the night of the murder. Then an old friend of her mot...more
Sometimes a decision can alter lives drastically. Jinx, Taboo, Berris and Joy all made decisions, bad decisions, that altered everyone's lives. As I read A Cupboard Full of Coats I experienced a vast array of emotions which certainly is a credit to first time author, Yvvette Edwards. When an author can make you feel, see and almost taste the bitterness and the sweet, you come away from the story a little different. A bit changed yourself for having read it. A Cupboard Full of Coats does that.
Yvv...more
Yvv...more
A shame this didn't make it to the shortlist for the Man Booker Prize and was curatiled at the longlist.
As a debut novel this is surely one to be proud of. Told in two seperate timelines, the narrator, Jinx, unpicks both the devastation that her mother's relationship with Berris brought to bear and also the bones of her adult life, lonely and enduring a failing relationship with her son. Within these timelines, the narrative is erratic and non-linear. Frequently Jinx will drop a bombshell as tho...more
As a debut novel this is surely one to be proud of. Told in two seperate timelines, the narrator, Jinx, unpicks both the devastation that her mother's relationship with Berris brought to bear and also the bones of her adult life, lonely and enduring a failing relationship with her son. Within these timelines, the narrative is erratic and non-linear. Frequently Jinx will drop a bombshell as tho...more
Ok. Overwrought. That's the word I can best describe the book and its protagonist. It's nicely written, but I cannot, at the end of it, overcome my distaste for the narrator-protagonist. She is whiny. All the bloody time. She expects things to come to her, she deserves a better life damn it! without of course, working for it. Ugh. I was so fed up of her whining in the first two chapters, when the story turned into flashback mode I was relieved. Not because she became any better, but because the...more
I first picked this up when I read that it had been long-listed for the Booker Prize -- always a coup for a debut novelist. A suspenseful and engrossing read, Cupboard Full of Coats, is the story of Jinx, a hip but isolated Londoner who believes she played a pivotal role in events that led to her mother's murder. When an old family friend shows up out of the blue and slowly reveals what really happened those many years ago, Jinx's whole world is upended. It's a book that has been compared to the...more
When I picked-up this book from the library, I was very skeptical (odd I know). The cover wasn’t really what I was expecting from a Booker Prize nominee, but as the old saying goes the contents of this book should not be judged by the cover. This is a book about Jinx, whose mother is murdered by her boyfriend. When a family friend Lemon comes to visit, Jinxy has to face her past. This book was depressing, but very well written. I left this book feeling torn. I thought the ending was too cherry c...more
Early on in the readings, I thought some things were overly descriptive or wordy and new to this writer from London. As I got past 100 pages, nearly halfway, the book started to open up to me. Yet, for some, you can get lost in the moment of going through Jinx past when she was a teenager to when she was an adult. However, her past demons that she fossilized comes into play to understand her past memories and emotions that lead to her adulthood behaviors of not being a mother to her 4 year old s...more
A novel which captured me after some confusion in the opening. An adult daughter of a woman who is long dead opens the door to Lemon, the man who was involved in the death of her mother at the hands of her live-in boyfriend. The book gradually unfolds what happened the night of the death in language I found apt and moving. Every time the boyfriend had beaten the mother, he had bought the mother an extravagant new coat, an entire closetful of them, still hanging where they were left. The adult da...more
** I received this book as a giveaway **
This is one of those books that begins with a lingering question, a half-presented hook that keeps you reading to put the pieces together. Edwards has not only created compelling characters, but made an interesting story out of their pasts and present. I'm not one for first-person narratives, as sometimes first-time writers tend to get stuck in the "I...I...I..." format, but Edwards handles it nicely, peppering the prose with lovely descriptions while also...more
This is one of those books that begins with a lingering question, a half-presented hook that keeps you reading to put the pieces together. Edwards has not only created compelling characters, but made an interesting story out of their pasts and present. I'm not one for first-person narratives, as sometimes first-time writers tend to get stuck in the "I...I...I..." format, but Edwards handles it nicely, peppering the prose with lovely descriptions while also...more
2 likes · like · see review
I like this book. In some places I find it was a bit too long drawn out. There was a whole chapter of flashback and I think that could have been broken up. Althought the actual flashback was interesting it still was too much with one character doing a confession of sorts.
Being a mother I cannot wrap my head around a mother's inability to love her child or to bond with her child. Although the narrator offers some twisted logics for that I still cannot get it. Sometimes I want to slap her and what...more
Being a mother I cannot wrap my head around a mother's inability to love her child or to bond with her child. Although the narrator offers some twisted logics for that I still cannot get it. Sometimes I want to slap her and what...more
Well, as Reading Group books go, this was better than the last few. At least the people who were beaten & abused were slightly older. (not funny but you should have had to read the last few we've had)
It did make me want to keep reading to find out what had happened and why the main character blamed herself for her mother's murder when there was someone else just getting out of prison for it. All our ideas as to why this was were turned on their heads, which has to be good.
The East London...more
It did make me want to keep reading to find out what had happened and why the main character blamed herself for her mother's murder when there was someone else just getting out of prison for it. All our ideas as to why this was were turned on their heads, which has to be good.
The East London...more
when i started this book,i didnt expect it to be this good. it started out a little boring but oh men when you get through the first pages you will never want to go back.
its a very emotional book. one a lot of people will relate to and for some strange reason turned out to be the perfect book for me. i totally recognized the feelings that where felt.
its a beautiful book also full of romance . intimmacy and dark aura. i wouldnt read it twice as it is somehow a thriller but i will definetly recom...more
its a very emotional book. one a lot of people will relate to and for some strange reason turned out to be the perfect book for me. i totally recognized the feelings that where felt.
its a beautiful book also full of romance . intimmacy and dark aura. i wouldnt read it twice as it is somehow a thriller but i will definetly recom...more
A chilling story and though you can see the inevitable train wreck coming, you still have to look. The honesty of the characters is painful to read as they remind me a bit too much of the pettiness and spite that exists in families. The emotion is raw and uncomfortable and damaged. Jinx is such a sad character, but her coldness makes her completely unlikeable and I find myself unable to excuse her behavior. This is definitely a page turner and I enjoyed it thoroughly but like a scab you can't st...more
This was a book that was outside my comfort zone. Its characters belong to places and cultures that I’ve never been or never encountered, so I was looking forward to learning something about a different way of life. I didn’t know what to expect from the narrative, since its synopsis implies an emotional drama but its cover art is utterly banal. I kept an open mind when it came to plot and style — but I was still disappointed by A Cupboard Full of Coats.
That violent murder mentioned in the synop...more
That violent murder mentioned in the synop...more
2 likes · like · see review
Buying this book was based on a string of bad decisions.
First I read about it being one of bookers long-listed, then i fell in love deeply with the name "A Cupboard full of coats" what a perfect name for emotions and memories, Third the cover, then the fact it was set in east London a rich place that produces great novels because of the cultural diversity. Last there was all these fives and fours. One thing I MISSED THE FACT THAT THE FIRST 40+ REVIEWERS WERE WOMEN!
Slow going in circles unnece...more
First I read about it being one of bookers long-listed, then i fell in love deeply with the name "A Cupboard full of coats" what a perfect name for emotions and memories, Third the cover, then the fact it was set in east London a rich place that produces great novels because of the cultural diversity. Last there was all these fives and fours. One thing I MISSED THE FACT THAT THE FIRST 40+ REVIEWERS WERE WOMEN!
Slow going in circles unnece...more
1 like · like · see review
Oh my, what a debut!
This author is someone to follow. What a gift with words; so perfectly constructed characters. The whole atmosphere she creates is so lyrical, so many beautiful sentences, I had to highlight and take notes on my kindle almost in every page.
There are points through the novel where you can actually smell the food she's describing; listen to Lemon with his thick accent; cry with Jinx.
Abuse and passion crimes, unfortunately, are not new themes to many women; the way they are told...more
This author is someone to follow. What a gift with words; so perfectly constructed characters. The whole atmosphere she creates is so lyrical, so many beautiful sentences, I had to highlight and take notes on my kindle almost in every page.
There are points through the novel where you can actually smell the food she's describing; listen to Lemon with his thick accent; cry with Jinx.
Abuse and passion crimes, unfortunately, are not new themes to many women; the way they are told...more
There are no discussion topics on this book yet.
Be the first to start one »
Share This Book
2 trivia questions
More quizzes & trivia...
“My relationship had ended and Red had taken my son. My life was my own and I could do anything I wanted, yet I felt nothing. As I stood staring at the walls, searching inside myself for some kind of emotional response, the nothingness suddenly welled up inside me, like a physical mass, so vast and empty and infinite I was terrified. The very first time I went running, it was from that terror, from the possibility of being sucked down into emptiness for ever, and as I ran I discovered I was able to feel; pressure in my lungs, pain in my legs, my skin perspiring, the pounding of my heart.
My routine was erratic, I ran when I felt like it, usually five or six times a month. So was my style. It was nothing like that of the runners I grew accustomed to seeing, the ones who regulated themselves, jogged two or three times a week, who did a warm-up first and stretching exercises afterwards, the people for whom the activity was a hobby. I ran like my life depended on it, as fast and as hard as I could. Sometimes, passers-by would look beyond me as I ran towards them, with fear in their eyes, trying to see who or what was pursuing me, trying to work out whether they should be running too. As long as I was feeling, I didn’t care.”
—
5 people liked it
My routine was erratic, I ran when I felt like it, usually five or six times a month. So was my style. It was nothing like that of the runners I grew accustomed to seeing, the ones who regulated themselves, jogged two or three times a week, who did a warm-up first and stretching exercises afterwards, the people for whom the activity was a hobby. I ran like my life depended on it, as fast and as hard as I could. Sometimes, passers-by would look beyond me as I ran towards them, with fear in their eyes, trying to see who or what was pursuing me, trying to work out whether they should be running too. As long as I was feeling, I didn’t care.”
“There was a time if my mother had said we she’d have meant me and her. Now it was them. She was still a part of we; it was me who wasn’t. They used to be other people, those who lived outside our home. Now they were inside, it was me and them.”
—
1 person liked it
More quotes…
Sep 29, 2011 09:22pm