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摘要
摘要
When ten year old Rainey Dougherty's mother is hospitalized for mental instability, Rainey and her 4 siblings find themselves at the mercy of Merle, their irreverently funny and bitter aunt, who comes up to the country from the Bronx with her troubled fourteen year old daughter Joan, to take care of that goddamn bunch of nuts she knows these children are.
For Rainey, this starts a summer of enlightenment where she learns about the realities of life through the eyes of innocence. We chart Rainey's course through a year that is often harrowing, sometimes hilarious, but always hopeful. Merle's voice is the one clear note in Rainey's head as she begins a season without her mother, a season that brings both Joan and Rainey again and again to the brink of disaster.
Time and again it is the force of Merle's voice, stale and tough as old gum, that Rainey chews on and eventually swallows, that rescues her from disaster. But when Merle is silenced, and Joan is lost, Rainey is left to take her first step outside the confines of her family, unguided, and into her own future. It is this step that will make all the difference in her life, a step forward that she will never forget.
评论 (3)
出版社周刊评论
Like many of our most beloved novels, Freund's poignant debut is narrated from a child's perspective, that of 10-year-old Lorraine Dougherty, or Rainey, as she's called. Rainey's shoulder-high view of the world is sensuous and innocent, and like most young narrators, she is navigating a world she barely comprehends. Set near New York's Finger Lakes in 1953, the novel tells the story of the year Rainey's mother went crazy and her aunt Merle came up from the Bronx to help Rainey's father look after his five children. Merle is everything Rainey's mother is not sarcastic, threatening, sexy. Merle's two children, Joan and Wayne, are also older, meaner and more sophisticated than their country cousins, and the seven children are alternately cruel and loving to each other. From time to time, Merle's husband comes up from the Bronx for the chance to slap his wife around, while Rainey's father, Andy, makes a 120-mile trip twice a week to see his wife in the hospital, doing what he can to hasten her recovery. Adding to the family tumult, Merle and Joan attract the attention of the neighbors, Eddie Birdseye and his son, Harold, who hover like flies around the Dougherty farm. Freund renders these characters with great compassion. Particularly touching are Rainey's father, the sort of man who is awakened at night by his children's sorrow, and Rainey herself, who never recognizes her peril. The child's point of view may not satisfy all readers, as some parts of the story must remain obscure. But Freund often uses Rainey's limited perception to brilliant effect, as when the narrator watches shooting stars while her cousin describes what neither of them knows is statutory rape. These moments simply glow, and they are the reason to read this tender novel. Agent, Deborah Grosvenor. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus评论
Girl cousins watch each other grow up and apart while their combined families falter and fail: a remarkably knowing, edgy debut by an Arizona-based writer who raised five children and waitressed for 18 years before returning to school. Ten-year-old narrator Rainey's mother is the first to fall, when she breaks down under the stress of caring for a houseful of kids in upstate New York and is packed off to the mental hospital for electroshock treatment and a long rest. Taking Mom's place is her red-haired younger sister Merle, who moves up from the Bronx with a hard-bitten attitude and a 13-year-old daughter. Joan, a child-woman who duplicates in spades her mother's foul mouth and rebellious streak, gets busy intimidating the cousins, especially Rainey. Meanwhile, Merle ("I'd shoot those little bastards") is making the most of her time away from Uncle, the abusive fruit-vendor she left in the city with their delinquent son Wayne. She quickly makes the acquaintance of a local Native American photographer, stepping out to the roadhouse every chance she gets, while her daughter is winning the heart of his son, a fire-scarred loner with a horse Joan is just itching to ride. Rainey alternates between helping Joan and spying on her, but when Uncle arrives with Wayne, an already tenuous situation turns dangerous. The boy, a peeping Tom who develops a grudge against Rainey, ties her to a tree one winter's evening and leaves her to die. Then Uncle explodes in rage when he finds evidence of Merle's after-hours activity. Somehow, out of this maelstrom Rainey emerges with her sensitivity and goodness intact, although Joan pays a heavier price. Joyful, doleful, artfully nuanced, and virtually flawless in voice and detail: this is as good as it gets.
《书目》(Booklist)书评
When her mother has a nervous breakdown, 10-year-old Rainey and her four siblings are left in the care of their flamboyant Aunt Merle, who comes up from New York City with her wild daughter, Joan, and her peculiar son, Wayne. Drinking her morning beer ("for courage"), Merle chafes under her domestic responsibilities and spends her time chain-smoking, dispensing brutally funny asides, and flirting with a handsome neighbor. She is convinced it's the children who have driven her sister crazy and has no qualms about telling them so. It's Rainey, still innocent but desperate to make sense of the adult world, who narrates the events of the year her mother remains hospitalized; she takes it all in--small pleasures, such as ice-skating on the pond, and harrowing moments, as when Joan is struck by lightning. Freund has set up an interesting dynamic here--it's Rainey who will win readers' sympathies with her desperate need for attention and love, but it's the flippant Merle, not so likable, whose dire worldview proves heartbreakingly accurate. A striking debut. --Joanne Wilkinson