Book
You are the love of my life : a novel
Record details
- ISBN: 9780393082807
-
Physical Description:
print
regular print
298 pages ; 25 cm - Edition: First edition.
- Publisher: New York : W.W. Norton & Company, 2012.
- Copyright: ©2012.
Search for related items by subject
| Subject: | Family secrets -- Fiction |
Available copies
- 2 of 2 copies available at Sitka.
Holds
- 0 current holds with 0 total copies.
Other Formats and Editions
| Location | Call Number / Copy Notes | Barcode | Shelving Location | Holdable? | Status | Due Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Castlegar Public Library | FIC SHR (Text) | 35146001753219 | Fiction | Volume hold | Available | - |
| Winkler Library | F Shr (Text) | 35864001581048 | Adult Fiction | Volume hold | Available | - |
- Booklist Reviews : Booklist Reviews 2012 June #1
*Starred Review* A winsomely eccentric children's book illustrator known for her quirky characters, Lucy Painter leads an avant-garde life, even by the freewheeling standards of New York in the early 1970s. She is the mother of Maggie and Felix, fathered by her much-loved and much-married editor, Reuben Frank, whom they know only as Uncle Reuben. Lucy abruptly decides to uproot her children and herself and retreat to the house in Washington, D.C., once owned by her father, a trusted advisor to Harry Truman who resigned amid secrecy and scandal. All the new paint and renovations in the world, however, never fully conceal that it is also the house where her father committed suicide when Lucy was only 12. She returns to a close-knit Washington community in the throes of Watergate mania and in thrall to neighborhood maven Zee Mallory, under whose intense scrutiny Lucy risks exposure of her unacknowledged past as Samuel Baldwin's daughter and Reuben Frank's lover. Prolific and perceptive Shreve (A Student of Living Things, 2006) handles complex themes of identity, loyalty, privacy, and commitment with finesse, delicacy, and insight, ensuring that her latest is a worthy book-club recommendation. Copyright 2012 Booklist Reviews. - Kirkus Reviews : Kirkus Reviews 2012 August #1
Lucy Painter's love for unreliable men has resulted in a life built on shame and secrets, until a crisis involving her own daughter cracks the mold. A conspiracy of silence, matched by the Watergate-hearings background, enfolds Shreve's (Warm Springs, 2007, etc.) readable family drama that opens with 12-year-old Lucy Baldwin discovering her father's suicide. Instructed by her mother never to speak of their shame, Lucy has spent subsequent years not dealing with the trauma. Now a successful children's writer, she has held a long relationship with her married editor in New York, the father of her two children, who has often talked of leaving his wife but has never done it. Finally, Lucy and the children, Felix and Maggie, have relocated to D.C., to the selfsame house where her father died. Felix takes the move well; Maggie however is becoming infuriated by her mother's secrecy and wants to know the identity of her father. Across the road lives another mother with a secret, Zee Mallory, who craves Maggie as the daughter she never had. As Maggie falls under Zee's spell, Lucy is forced to act and speak. The gothic finale doesn't fully deliver, but with her engaging tale and prose as fluid as Sue Miller's or Anna Quindlen's, if quirkier, Shreve hits the commercial bull'seye. Copyright Kirkus 2012 Kirkus/BPI Communications.All rights reserved. - Library Journal Reviews : LJ Reviews 2012 July #1
Lucy Painter's past is full of secrets she is not ready to share. The father of her two children is married to someone else and has no plans to change that situation. She moves her family from New York City to a suburb of Washington, DC, hoping for distance and clarity. There she forms a tightly knit community with her neighbor, Zelda Mallory, as ringleader. Lucy's preteen daughter, Maggie, has reached the angry stage when she wants a different, more exotic and glamorous mother. Zelda fits that descriptionâand wants the job. Lucy doesn't want to lose her daughter but keeping Maggie means that she must reveal her secrets. A crisis is reached when Zelda, who has secrets of her own, abducts Maggie. In resolving the crisis all is revealed and Lucy can finally move on. Shreve (The Lovely Shoes) captures and exposes human frailty and the psychological trauma to everyone involved when people try to hide from reality. VERDICT The characters are varied and three-dimensional. The preteen/adult conflict between Maggie and Lucy is spot on. This book will appeal to readers of fiction that describes the human condition. [See Prepub Alert, 1/30/12.]âJoanna M. Burkhardt, Univ. of Rhode Island Libs., Providence
[Page 78]. (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. - Publishers Weekly Reviews : PW Reviews 2012 June #2
Shreve explores the damaging ripple effect of secrets in her emotional and psychologically compelling newest (after The Lovely Shoes). Lucy Painter was 12 when she discovered her hanged father in their house in Washington, D.C. His suicide instilled in Lucy an abiding shame, and became the root of her reclusiveness and belief in "necessary" lies. Later, Lucy becomes a successful children's book illustrator and a single mother, but keeps the father's identity hidden from her children, preteen Maggie and young Felix because he is a married man. In 1973, Lucy and her kids move from New York back to Lucy's childhood home, where she struggles with intrusive neighbors, especially the headstrong Zee Mallory. To Lucy's increasing chagrin, Zee begins "appropriating" Maggie, who is hurt by her mother's emotional reticence. Only when Lucy realizes that she may lose her daughter does she summon the courage to reveal her past. Shreve has an authoritative command of narrative, and she portrays the younger characters with insight and pitch-perfect dialogue, crafting a message of transparency and acceptance that resonates beyond the home. (Aug.)
[Page ]. Copyright 2012 PWxyz LLC
