From Publishers Weekly
As Styron's mournful but potent debut novel opens, Adelaide Abraham has just arrived on the fictional Caribbean island of St. Clair. Addy, as she's called, is attending the funeral of her childhood nanny, Lou Louise Alfred and she's staying not in a hotel, but with Lou's family. For, as becomes clear, Lou was Addy's family back when Addy was a disturbed and unruly child and her parents' marriage was breaking up. In the course of the three days Addy spends on St. Clair, she learns something about the resentful family Lou left behind. Bitterest is Derek, Lou's younger son, who felt his mother abandoned him when she left to take a job caring for a wealthy white girl. Most disturbed is Lou's father, who thinks Addy is a white property owner who used to accuse him of stealing. Interleaved with Addy's encounters on St. Clair are her memories of the years Lou cared for her. These scenes are vivid and incisive, making it painfully clear that Addy's parents artists and intellectuals were too self-involved to manage Addy. In contrast to the direct narration of these sections, the story of Lou's family is told thirdhand, through Addy's reports of her conversations with Lou's sister and sons. While these are carefully rendered, learning Lou's life this way is, as Addy says, like "racing through time on a bullet train, monumental events melting down to smears of color." Styron (daughter of writers William and Rose Styron) beautifully juxtaposes Addy's past and the present on St. Claire, dealing deftly with a series of ironies. Although some readers may find Addy slow to catch on, Styron's gift is to make the reader feel real grief for her characters and real relief for Addy when she begins to make a peace with herself and her parents.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
--Ce texte provient d'une édition qui n'est plus publiée ou qui est non diponible.
From Library Journal
This debut novel by Styron, the daughter of novelist William Styron and poet Rose Styron, explores the life of Addy Abraham, the daughter of 1960s radical intellectuals. Addy finds herself unexpectedly attending the funeral of her childhood nanny, Lou Louise Alfred, and in so doing she confronts her own past and present resentments as well as those of Lou's family left behind in the Caribbean. The structure of the novel weaves past and present together, unfolding a slowly developed but pain-filled portrait of Addy, who lived only on the edge of her parents' world until she was rescued by the now almost forgotten Lou. The intermingling of time periods may be confusing, making it difficult to get a full sense of either the child or the adult. The author reads the book very well; recommended for large collections. Joyce Kessel, Villa Maria Coll., Buffalo, NY
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--Ce texte provient de la
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