From Publishers Weekly
Strause juxtaposes the caustic and the poignant in his first novel, a pitch-perfect teenage take on human failings and superhuman spectacle in central Ohio. Monroe Anderson, stealing away to smoke pot before his senior prom, discovers his vivacious, sensitive 11-year-old sister, Annika, face down in their pool. He saves her life, but she remains in a coma. A crowd of well-wishers pray beneath Annika's hospital window, and it's not too long before the miracles begin: rose petals rain from the sky; Annika's hands bleed like stigmata. Soon Annika is inspiring letters, pleas and pilgrimages from the nation's sick and grieving, whom Monroe alternately pities and scorns, as he does the family priest who promotes Annika as a latter-day Jesus. The media fuels the frenzy, and Monroe's mother dolls Annika up for her visitors with feverish optimism. Monroe's workaholic father and loutish older brother also reveal their fragilities in the crucible of Annika's prolonged coma, an estranging rather than unifying force. The metaphysical runs up against the mundane with darkly comic ambiguity. "If Annika had the power to heal, wouldn't she heal herself first... and go into the kitchen and make everyone pancakes?" Monroe thinks. Monroe's barbed detachment and biting sarcasm, tempered by the awe that steals over him at unguarded moments, hold the reader even when the plot crawls.
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Michael Louis Wells hits the mark with his portrayal of the sardonic narrator, Monroe Anderson, in this moving story of tragedy and faith. At the age of 18, Monroe rescues his younger sister, Annika, from drowning in a swimming pool. However, Annika falls into a coma and develops the symptoms of the stigmata. Monroe tells the story of his family's encounter with the miracle. Wells narrates with a mix of dry humor and tenderness as Monroe grapples with the healing of flawed relationships and the meaning of miracles. Wells is also compelling as Monroe's mother, who never loses faith, and his father, who regrets his inattentiveness to his family. K.M.D. © AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine--
Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
