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Title: Child of My Heart by Alice McDermott ISBN: 0-374-12123-0 Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux Pub. Date: 12 December, 2002 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $23.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.35 (48 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Melancholy
Comment: This is a difficult book to appraise. My reaction is based on the affection I have for the characters, especially the girls Theresa is nurturing the summer this story takes place during. There is something lonely and unsettled about Theresa's life and about her charges Daisy and Flora. Parents and adults in this book are not very imaginative or involved but are not dilikeable either. The novel is really about loss and the beautiful frailty of remembered moments. McDermott is a stunning writer.
Many other readers took offense to the 'creepy' relationship between the artist father of Flora (who seems very Picasso-like to me) and Theresa but I felt there was a certain reality to it. Beautiful young women, which is precisely what Theresa is becoming, are often drawn to old men with talent. It is a fact of the world. His sexuality must be potent for he is still a man who commands several women in his life. As inexplicable as it may seem to some of us, it does happen. Theresa almost behaves in a dreamlike maner around him, perhaps a form of rebellion against the cautious dreams her parents have formed on her behalf.
A book I would recommend to anyone who likes a nostalgic, yet not sugary coming-of-age novel.
Rating: 4
Summary: Inspired, Beautiful Prose;Some Reservations...
Comment: You can read this book in one concentrated sitting, and the book feels like an inspired burst of breath. There are many passages of writing that are superb - some of the best sentence-writing McDermott has ever done... and that's saying something. Mcdermott's forte has always been rendering the specificities of life with a sober, but poetic slant. There is nothing really intriguing about the events themselves in McDermott's novels, but filtered through McDermott's eyes, everything becomes somehow meaningful... even sacrosanct.
This book can be called a bildungsroman, but unlike most rite-of-passage books which tend to take a sweeping view of a person's life, this novel takes a slice from a girl's life (a single summer, a few weeks) and examines how such a short moment transformed everything in the world for her.
The story is simplicity itself. Theresa is a fifteen year-old, a precocious babysitter, who looks after her young cousin, Daisy. On the surface level, not much goes on in the novel. There are adults who make up the moral landscape of the novel, and it's a tribute to McDermott's strength as a writer that much of this moral landscape is filled in through the absence of these adult characters... this vacuity that exists in the novel makes this suburban world of Theresa seem very lonely.
The climax of the novel (which I won't give away) is quite foreseeable, but this doesn't distract us from being engaged. The ending is as natural and inevitable as life itself, and although unspoken, it is quite clear that Theresa will never be the girl of fifteen again hence.
As I've mentioned, some of the writing is magnificent. The last fifty pages of the book achieve a kind of incandescence; I got one of those rare buzzes you only get from a special kind of writing. The prose alone can transport you. But at the same time, some nagging aspects of the novel got in the way of the story. It is clear that Theresa is fond of Daisy, but their relationship seemed too cloying at times. Undoubtedly, this is realistic; children can be attached to someone unequivocally. But it became repetitive... the constant 'poor daisy's' uttered, noxzema cream slathered on feet...
This is a coming-of-age tale as only McDermott can write it. Most of the denouement of the novel, Theresa's coming to terms with life and its gravity, the passing of youth, becomes apparent through unspoken terms. Sure, this book doesn't quite fully plumb the depths of the characters as her excellent novels from the past. Nevertheless, McDermott's insight is enlightening, and the book contains some of her most effortlessly passionate writing to date.
Rating: 5
Summary: I loved this book
Comment: I read this book "Child of My Heart" twice in one week.
I loved the characters. The Moran Children, Flora and mostly I loved Daisy. I wanted Daisy to be saved and was saddened by "we lost Daisy in March."
When Teresa, Daisy and Flora decorated the tree with lollipops I was visualizing it. When they were on the beach I felt I was there with them. I was with them every minute.
I did not understand why Teresa had this sexual encounter with the painter. If she was a young and beautiful girl, she could have had an encounter with a young and handsome boy near her own age. I decided that she was impressed with his reputation as a painter and a lover.
Teresa was only 15 years old and a 15 year old looks at situations differently than a mature person. She had no idea how serious the situation was with Daisy's health.
I read "Charming Billy" and did not like it. So you see we are all different.
I cannot wait until Alice McDermott writes another book. Maybe she will write one about a grown up Teresa and the Moran Children.
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Title: Middlesex : A Novel by Jeffrey Eugenides ISBN: 0312422156 Publisher: Picador USA Pub. Date: 16 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: Property : A Novel by Valerie Martin ISBN: 038550408X Publisher: Nan A. Talese Pub. Date: 18 February, 2003 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
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Title: Three Junes by Julia Glass, Julia Glass ISBN: 0385721420 Publisher: Anchor Pub. Date: 22 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: The Story of Lucy Gault by William Trevor ISBN: 014200331X Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: 26 August, 2003 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: The Center of Everything by Laura Moriarty ISBN: 1401300316 Publisher: Hyperion Press Pub. Date: 02 July, 2003 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
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