cover image Hole in the World

Hole in the World

Richard Rhodes. Touchstone Books, $10 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-671-74725-1

Rhodes, whose mother committed suicide when he was a year old, recalls how he and his older brother were physically and emotionally devastated by an abusive stepmother and their father's complicity with her. ``He explores the minefield of his boyhood with a convincing neutrality that precludes neither love nor hate and allows, in the end, redemption and an unforgettable view of a childhood,'' said PW. (Oct.)