Tucker's outstanding novel (after Shout Down the Moon
) is as structurally dextrous as it is emotionally satisfying, boasting a chorus of extraordinary voices and assured parallel plot lines separated by four decades. In the present day, 23-year-old Dorothea has left her overprotective father's secluded 35-acre New Mexico estate, called the Sanctuary, where she and her brother, Jimmy, had been sheltered from current news and all modern-day innovations. Searching for her runaway brother in St. Louis, Dorothea meets a recently widowed doctor-turned-cabbie, who introduces her to the vibrant outside world he's been trying to escape. A parallel tale set in the 1970s follows the budding romance between a successful film director and the waif who becomes his muse, his wife and the object of his obsessive control. The tour de force resolution that ties both stories together is a lyrically poignant reminder of the necessity of hope. An exceptionally empathetic storyteller, Tucker has created a haunting, gripping novel that brims with graceful writing and fragile characters. This should be catnip for book clubs, whether they devour it as a page-turner about parenting and family or discuss its subtle meditations on fate and coincidence, wealth and poverty, freedom and safety, fairy tales and American dreams. 10-city author tour. (May)
Details
Reviewed on: 11/28/2005
Genre: Fiction
Compact Disc - 978-1-5113-6235-1
Compact Disc - 978-1-4233-1050-1
Hardcover - 557 pages - 978-0-7862-8967-7
MP3 CD - 978-1-5012-8807-4
MP3 CD - 978-1-4233-1052-5
Other - 352 pages - 978-1-4165-2318-5
Other - 352 pages - 978-1-4711-0546-3
Paperback - 368 pages - 978-0-7434-9278-2
Pre-Recorded Audio Player - 978-1-60775-883-9
