The world's truest lover of the Lee family gingerbread, however, is Harriet's charismatic childhood friend Gretel Kercheval - a figure who seems to have had a hand in everything (good or bad) that has happened to Harriet since they met.ĭecades later, when teenaged Perdita sets out to find her mother's long-lost friend, it prompts a new telling of Harriet's story. Londoners may find themselves able to take or leave it, but it's very popular in Druhástrana, the faraway (or, according to many sources, nonexistent) land of Harriet Lee's early youth. And then there's the gingerbread they make. For one thing, they share a gold-painted seventh-floor walk-up apartment with some surprisingly verbal vegetation. Perdita Lee may appear to be your average British schoolgirl Harriet Lee may seem just a working mother trying to penetrate the school social hierarchy but there are signs that they might not be as normal as they think they are. Influenced by the mysterious place gingerbread holds in classic children's stories, beloved novelist Helen Oyeyemi invites listeners into a delightful tale of a surprising family legacy, in which the inheritance is a recipe. The prize-winning, best-selling author of Boy, Snow, Bird, What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours, and Peaces returns with a bewitching and imaginative novel. prose is not without its playful bite.' ( Vogue ) A wildly imagined, head-spinning, deeply intelligent novel.' ( The New York Times Book Review )

Gingerbread by Helen Oyeyemi