Once Upon an Effing Time, Buffy Cram
Once Upon an Effing Time, Buffy Cram
List: $19.99 | Sale: $13.99
Club: $9.99

Once Upon an Effing Time

Author: Buffy Cram

Narrator: Megan Trout

Unabridged: 10 hr 7 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 09/26/2023


Synopsis

It's 1969. An eight-year-old girl, Elizabeth Squire, has a choice to make: to be disabled by the circumstances of her own botched birth or to become extraordinary.

In Buffy Cram's captivating new novel, Elizabeth narrates the story of her childhood in the late sixties, describing how she came to be at a Vancouver halfway house at the age of nineteen. Once Upon an Effing Time chronicles the sometimes-exploitative relationship between Elizabeth and Margaret, her mother, and the bizarre and criminal misadventures they have after running away from Ontario's cheese belt and their "Big Sad Story."

Attempting to bond with her neglectful mother, Elizabeth learns to adopt personas and live multiple lives, transforms into a fortune teller named MeMe who speaks primarily in Bob Dylan lyrics, and joins an American hippie doomsday cult. Elizabeth's life is fragmented between ordinary childhood pleasures and indulging her mother's conspiracy theories about the upcoming moon landing by hiding pamphlets in New York City Public Library books. Throughout, Buffy Cram weaves humor and heartbreak together to form an engaging narrative about cults—the cult of family, the cult of counterculture, the cult of rock 'n' roll—and the role of story within those cults.

About Buffy Cram

Buffy Cram is a writer of fiction and non-fiction, an entrepreneur, and a farmer. Reviewing her book of stories, Radio Belly, the Globe and Mail pronounced her "a whip-smart storyteller who aims to shake up our reading expectations in ways that delight." She has been a fiction finalist for the Western Magazine Awards, has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and has won a National Magazine Award. She holds an MFA in creative writing from UBC and lives on Salt Spring Island, British Columbia.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Geonn on September 30, 2023

Ugh. First, for a book with such an irreverent title, this is jarringly serious and tragic. Second, the "before" sections aren't bad. They're clearly the purpose of the book. But then there's the "after," which feels like an epilogue stretched out to be long enough to cram one section between each c......more

Goodreads review by Stephanie (aka WW) on December 12, 2023

This book was offered on Edelweiss for immediate download…no request necessary. I went in with low expectations and am happy to say that I was pleasantly surprised. I knew I was in for something different – after all, the title includes the word “effing” – but I wasn’t prepared for the heart that th......more

Goodreads review by Gianluca on March 24, 2025

C'ero una volta è un libro che si sviluppa su due piani temporali. Da un lato c'è il prima, il 1969, gli anni degli hippy, dell'amore libero, dello sbarco sulla luna, gli anni del sogno americano. Dall'altro c'è il 1980 con una ragazza ormai diciannovenne che ha trascorso 10 anni in un centro di deten......more

Goodreads review by Vanessa on February 13, 2025

Il racconto di un viaggio che sa di avventura ma anche di disperata ricerca di amore e accettazione. Un libro che può sembrare in alcuni punti ridondante ma credo si trovi una spiegazione nelle ultimissime pagine. Una storia dolorosa ma che sa anche di rinascita e speranza.......more

Goodreads review by Silvia on March 14, 2025

Un libro carino, per chi ama leggere di rapporti madre figlia e per chi ama la musica Anni 70. Una ragazza trascorre 10 anni in prigione e a 19 arriva in una casa famiglia. Qui la invitano a scrivere la sua storia, come terapia. Ed ecco che ci racconta di Margaret, una madre sciroccata, di Michel fr......more