Gingerbread

Influenced by the mysterious place gingerbread holds in classic children's stories beloved novelist Helen Oyeyemi invites readers into a delightful tale of a surprising family legacy in which the inheritance is a recipe. 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. For one thing they share a gold-painted seventh-floor walk-up apartment with some surprisingly verbal vegetation. And then there's the gingerbread they make. Londoners may find themselves able to take or leave it but it's very popular in Druhástrana the far-away (or according to many sources non-existent) land of Harriet Lee's early youth. 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. Decades later when teenaged Perdita sets out to find her mother's long-lost friend it prompts a new telling of Harriet's story. As the book follows the Lees through encounters with jealousy ambition family grudges work wealth and real estate gingerbread seems to be the one thing that reliably holds a constant value. Endlessly surprising and satisfying written with Helen Oyeyemi's inimitable style and imagination it is a true feast for the reader.