Customer Reviews

All the Finest Girls : A Novel

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Despite her literary pedigree (her parents are William and Rose Styron), or maybe because of it, I wasn't expecting Alexandra Styron's first novel to be anything special. Boy was I WRONG! All the Finest Girls is a touching story of misplaced motherhood, dislocated identity, and fractured childhood. Addy Abraham is a troubled young girl, neglected by her actress mother and upwardly-mobile father. Frustrated and alone, her only emotional expression seems to be horrific temper-tantrums which, of course, do not help ingratiate her into her parents lives. Addy is a lost girl in need of love. Enter Louise, the nanny from St. Clair. Starved for affection and attention, Addy is immediately drawn to Louise and they forge a mother-daughter relationship. The novel opens with Louise's death and Addy's subsequent visit to St. Clair to attend the funeral. The story of Addy's childhood unfolds gradually, via flashbacks, as her adult self is forced to confront the ugly truth about her relationship with her "black mother." All the Finest Girls is a heart-rending and very personal exploration of race relations and individual identity told with aplomb and grace. I look forward to Alexandra's next novel.

I enjoyed reading All the Finest Girls, though I walked away with that slighly clammy feeling I get when reading about people who are treading the fine line of sanity. Addy Abraham is a sick little girl, driven to hallucinations and fits by the neglect and selfishness of her alcoholic father and simpering debutant of a mother. Her grip on sanity is strengthened by the arrival of Lou, her Caribbean nanny. Now that Lou has died, Addy as an adult travels to St. Clair, still unwell, to face the ghosts of her past. Ms. Styron has written the book by alternating chapters of the adult and child Addy, which works well and is easy to follow.

All the Finest Girls is a disheartening book, the story of a sad and lonely little girl whose parents have forgotten the cardinal rule of parenthood -- the parents are no longer the focus of attention. I did not find Addy to be a particularly likeable character, though; she managed to somewhat annoy and bore me at the same time. It was the supporting cast that realy shined in the novel, and I look forward to hearing more from Alexandra Styron. Also recommended along these lines is Bee Season by Myla Goldberg -- if you liked this one, you should give it a try.

Alexandra Stryton's first book is about a young woman who is trying to discover who she is, and discovers it in the strangest place.
Addy Abraham was an angry child, until her new black new nanny comes to live in her house. Louise was the only one Addy loved, her mom being an actress who was always away.
Now, Addy lived in New york City and has a job at a museam restroring paintings. When her mom calls her with the news of Louise's death, she goes to the funeral in the Carribean.
But it turns out to be more that just a funeral. Addy confronts her past and comes back to the states a mentally healthy person.
Like I said, this is NOT a book that you wont wanna put down. Stryton's language is so powerful and descriptive that you will still remember quotes from the book long after you have read it.
(I dont think that this is just an adult book. Teenagers that like to read adult books will love this book too)

Alexandra Styron has a new book out about her award-winning father, but I wanted to read her novel instead. As I read it, though, I wondered if it was not entirely fictional. Via intermittent flashbacks, we find that the main character, Addy, now a grown woman, was a wild child whose father was a philosopher/writer and whose mother was an actress/heiress. Neither parent was adept at or interested in parenting, and, if this novel is even faintly autobiographical, it's a scathing indictment of both of them. At the time that Louise arrived from the Caribbean to become Addy's nanny, Addy was the butt of schoolyard jokes about her unkempt appearance and was starved for a little TLC. Fast forward to the present, and Addy arrives on Louise's Caribbean island for Louise's funeral. Here Addy says and does exactly the wrong thing, time and again, managing to offend Louise's bereft family members, just as she had ultimately alienated Louise herself, and thus deepening the funk that she had already sunken into before she arrived on the island. This pilgrimage is sort of a lame and ill-advised attempt on Addy's part to connect with a family with whom she shares virtually nothing. Contrast this cringe-inducing awkwardness with the anger and frustration at her real parents' behavior, and you have a sense of how emotionally damaged Addy is. I suppose her work--restoring paintings--could be construed as therapeutic, but it's rather solitary. She needs a hug, and Louise's two sons, Philip and Derek, whose childhood their mother missed in order to become Addy's caregiver, are not inclined to embrace Addy, physically or emotionally. The irony is that the brothers' lack of mothering is a misfortune that they share with Addy. In order to mend her broken life, Addy will have to ante up some forgiveness, as will Philip and Derek.

Alexandra Styron's "All the Finest Girls" is a slight novel with touches of some genuinely fine writing most of which comes at the end when the story has unfolded and the main character Addy is evaluating her life and that of her parents and her beloved nanny, Lou. At times in this novel Ms. Styron suffers from what I call "TonyMorrisonization" which translates as: make the prose so dense and so convoluted that it must be read at least twice to understand it. Oh yes, and flash forward and back as many times as possible(hence the allusion to a movie script in the title of my review). ... All and All a good first novel. Ms. Styron is talented and I look forward to her second effort.

This book gets a C at best. It's a typical story of a woman trying to learn about herself. She's from a broken home, raised by a Carribbean nanny... Nanny dies, girl (now a woman) goes to the funeral and gets a cold welcome from the Nanny's family. There are the expected class and racial issues, and the outcome is dull... Just a common story.