可借阅:*
图书馆 | 资料类型 | 排架号 | 子计数 | 书架位置 | 状态 | 图书预约 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
正在检索... Branch | Book | FIC GOODWIN, S. | 1 | Fiction Collection | 正在检索... 未知 | 正在检索... 不可借阅 |
正在检索... Branch | Book | FICTION GOODW, S BRE | 1 | Fiction Collection | 正在检索... 未知 | 正在检索... 不可借阅 |
正在检索... South | Book | F GOODWIN | 1 | Fiction Collection | 正在检索... 未知 | 正在检索... 不可借阅 |
正在检索... South | Book | FIC GO | 1 | Fiction Collection | 正在检索... 未知 | 正在检索... 不可借阅 |
正在检索... South | Book | FICA GOOD | 1 | Fiction Collection | 正在检索... 未知 | 正在检索... 不可借阅 |
链接这些题名
已订购
摘要
摘要
ADVANCE PRAISE FOR BREAKING HER FALL A corker - vivid, brilliantly marbled with harmonies and textures and people vibrant with life." - Richard BauschPRAISE FOR THE BLOOD OF PARADISE "A book that seems laden, rich, powerful. The three characters at its center are so profoundly alive that whatever room you're reading this in will seem densely populated." - Anne Tyler, The Washington Post Book World "A corker - vivid, brilliantly marbled with harmonies and textures and people vibrant with life." "Goodwin gets so many things right here. Reminiscent of Robert Boswell, this is a layered, compassionate, extraordinarily graceful novel." "Smart, serious, and contemplative." "Psychologically acute... . A memorable exploration of familial love and penance, with a likeably bewildered - and articulate - protagonist." "
评论 (4)
出版社周刊评论
Goodwin's first novel in over two decades (after Blood of Paradise, 1979) is psychologically acute, if somewhat overplotted. Tucker Jones is a 44-year-old divorced father of two living in Washington, D.C. His life is settled in a comfortable routine until the night he receives an enigmatic phone call informing him that his 14-year-old daughter, Kat, has been involved in sexual games at a party. Blinded by worry and rage, Tucker finds the party and confronts a group of boys while looking for Kat; before the night is over, a high school junior loses his eye, and Tucker becomes embroiled in criminal proceedings that threaten to destroy his career (he owns a landscape business), family and financial stability. Goodwin tackles many subplots, including Tucker's relationship with Kat and her younger brother, Will; the ongoing litigation; and an affair that Tucker has with the mother of Kat's best friend. Tucker's reflections ramble from his son's fishing exploits to his ex-wife to the garage band he has formed with several other parents in the neighborhood. The plot becomes so busy that Goodwin loses control of the narrative at points. Still, the author's emotional compass is unfailing; he offers a memorable exploration of familial love and penance, with a likably bewildered-and articulate-protagonist: "I groaned with lust and remorse and an awareness of the disorder that seemed ready to swallow me up." Agent, Timothy Seldes. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus评论
A contemporary family drama, filled with angst and redemption. While enjoying a warm Washington, DC, night with his semi-girlfriend, Tucker Jones receives a damning phone call: a fellow parent informs him that a party has gotten out of hand and Tucker's 14-year-old daughter Kat can be found in the pool house fellating a group of drunken boys. Tucker rushes over, can't find Kat, confronts a pack of smug teenagers, and somehow becomes involved in the accident that fells Jed Vandenberg. The teenager ends up losing an eye, the Vandenbergs file a multimillion-dollar civil suit against Tucker, the government files felony assault charges against him, and his ex-wife is threatening to move Kat to New York, since obviously Dad has lost control. Or has he? Kat is a good girl, an athlete, barely involved with boys, he himself is happy and successful, so how did he and his daughter get involved in this Jerry Springeresqe trouble? Though the legal implications are certainly distressing (as is guilt over inadvertently maiming the Vandenberg boy), Tucker's real concern is Kat: the more he insists on closeness between them, wanting her to open up about all this mess, the more she shuts down and pushes him away. The tangled emotions seem appropriate given the events of the fateful July night, but when a few hundred pages are given over in dissection of them, the urgency of feeling becomes lost among the all talking. Though much else occurs: Tucker enters into therapy to sort himself out (and finds he is lonely for love); he considers a possible romance with his best friend Lily, who is married; Kat falls deeper into depression and becomes briefly involved with their housekeeper's charismatic church, and Kat's best friend Abby becomes pregnant by Jed Vandenberg. In someone else's hand this would turn into a big sudsy mess, some kind of modern, therapy-driven Peyton Place, but Goodwin's writing is too smart for that failing. Instead, it is weighted down by its own earnestness and worthy intentions, offering a sympathetic and labored analysis of all involved. Serious, contemplative, and also slow-moving third from Goodwin (The Blood of Paradise, 1979, etc.). Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
《书目》(Booklist)书评
In this emotionally charged novel, Goodwin ( The Blood of Paradise, 1979) homes in on parents' deepest fears and their all-too-flawed attempts to keep their children safe. Single-father Tucker Jones receives a late-night phone call informing him that his 14-year-old daughter, Kat, is in trouble. She was spotted at a party drinking vodka shooters and engaging in sex games with some older boys. Tucker, overcome with a deep, burning fury, goes to the scene of the party and within a few short minutes becomes involved in a melee in which high-school senior Jed Vandenberg is seriously injured. Jed's wealthy and influential father has Tucker arrested and served with a lawsuit that could ruin him. Suddenly, Tucker finds the list of house rules posted on their refrigerator (Show up on time ) woefully inadequate. Goodwin gets so many things right here--the halting, painful conversations between father and daughter; the fact that the grievously injured Jed was not one of the boys who took advantage of Kat; the way Tucker has shut himself down to avoid further pain after his bitter divorce; and, especially, the tenacity of a father's love for his children. Reminiscent of the work of Robert Boswell, this is a layered, compassionate, extraordinarily graceful novel. --Joanne Wilkinson Copyright 2003 Booklist
《图书馆杂志》(Library Journal )书评
Tucker Jones, all-round nice guy, devoted single father, and successful small business man in 1998 Washington, DC, watches in horror as it all starts to slip away from him with the kind of late-night phone call every parent dreads. At an unsupervised party, his lovely, inexperienced 14-year-old daughter, Kat, gets in way over her head with alcohol and randy boys. When Tucker races to her rescue, a confrontation with the boy at whose home the party is taking place results in a terrible accident. Suddenly, Tucker's secure world dissolves in a tidal wave of repercussions. Lawsuits and criminal charges, as well as an ex-wife who now wants custody of Kat and 12-year-old Will, nearly overwhelm Tucker's heroic determination to keep his family together. Goodwin (Kin; The Blood of Paradise) pulls the reader into the soul of this deeply thoughtful father as he battles ferociously to heal his children, who have put their suffering in the only safe place they know: their father's heart. He thus enters territory usually reserved for strong female characters-with enchanting success. Highly recommended. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 4/1/03.]-Beth E. Andersen, Ann Arbor Dist. Lib., MI (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
摘录
摘录
On an ordinary summer night in 1998, my daughter, Kathryn-Kat, we all called her, a fourteen-year-old who still liked to wear her blond hair in pigtails-told me that she was going to the movies with Abby, her best friend, but they never got there. Instead, they hooked up with some of the other counselors from Rockrapids, the outdoor camp where both girls were working that summer, and decided to blow off the movie. It was a hot, dense Washington night, and one of the boys-Jed Vandenberg-invited everybody back to his house. He had a pool. His parents were away. The kids started drinking beer and vodka shooters, and before long some of them had peeled off their clothes and jumped into the pool. They started playing Big Dare, a drinking game. Just before eleven, when Kat was supposed to phone to let me know that she was safe at Abby's house, I got a call from a stranger, a man whose daughter had been at this same party. He told me that Kat-your daughter, he said-had gone into the pool house to perform oral sex on a parade of boys.I wanted to kill that man. Performed oral sex on a parade of boys. I can still remember his exact words and his exact tone of disgust and judgment. He might as well have said, Your daughter is a slut, and I felt as though I had been shot. I felt a deep, burning fury, a heat and pressure that originated in my chest and made it hard to breathe, hard to speak, hard to see. Even my eyes felt burning and heavy, boiling in their sockets. I felt shocked and furious, and I was standing in my bedroom-naked, as it happened, with Christine extending her hand toward me in sympathy and puzzlement, whispering, "Tucker, Tucker, what is it? What's wrong?" and I brushed her hand away simply because she didn't know what had happened. She couldn't know. She was in her blue-and-white robe, stretched across the bed, fumbling with the remote to mute the sound on the VCR as she reached for me with her other hand, and I cannot forget the hurt, bewildered look that crossed her face when I batted her hand away. She hadn't heard what this man had told me, and even if she had, she couldn't have known that I had already crossed a line dividing one part of my life from another, dividing the past from the part that was to come. I was a single father and this was a moment I had dreaded, the moment when a child of mine slipped out of my safekeeping and walked straight into harm and grief. I'd been unable to protect her-failed to protect her, I thought-and I was ready to do anything, anything, to bring her back. My life was going to change. Had changed already.That, of course, is how I now remember and interpret that moment, the minute or so-it couldn't have been much more than a minute-that I was on the phone with a stranger, another parent whose words seared into me as an accusation. I have replayed that conversation, that whole night, a thousand times, and I come back again and again to that moment when confusion and dread and rage lifted me from the Excerpted from Breaking Her Fall by Stephen Goodwin All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.目录
""Breaking Her Fall is a frank, plain-spoken, passionate novel that got its grips on me |
It is, in one sense, a page turner, and in another a true and good story of human frailty and imperfection survived."" |
Richard Ford On an ordinary summer night in 1998, my daughter, Kathryn - Kat, we all called her, a fourteen-year-old who still liked to wear her blond hair in pigtails - told me that she was going to the movies with Abby, her best friend, but they never got there |
Instead, they hooked up with some ot |