Reading time: About 1 minute
I like to share interesting pieces of figurative language I encounter in my reading. I write today about similes from Jennifer Haigh….
The most recent novel by Jennifer Haigh takes on the topic of abortion. And as the New York Times puts it, ” it would be a terrible mistake to give it a miss because of its hot-button topic.”
The book, Mercy Street, has interesting and rewarding characters, a gripping plot and, perhaps unbelievably, a great deal of humour.
The book also contains some fine figurative language. Here are my favourite examples:
- On Mondays, the line rang nonstop — fallout from the weekend, it’s psychic detritus scattered like confetti after a parade.
- His most distinctive feature was a burly old-fashioned beard, the style favored by Ulysses S. Grant and the Smith Brothers, makers of cough drops. It hung halfway down his chest like a coarse woollen bib.
- Married life was like walking around in shoes that almost fit.
- He had never been to Methuen, a town that sounded like a sneeze.
- The offending tooth, a rear molar, had spread its poison widely, a kind of guerrilla warfare.
- The log house was freshness-sealed, tight as Tupperware.
- Deb had been a lackadaisical housekeeper, and Nicolette was no better: dirty dishes in the sink the carpet dusted with potato chip crumbs like some persistent dandruff.
- The costumes were weirdly revealing, in ways unflattering to a chubby child, her plump thighs squeezed like bratwurst into lacy stockings.
- Grit on the windshield, fine as sugar…
[Photo credit: Larry D. Moore. Cropped. Licensed under the the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.]
