Amazon.com Review
"Mom learned to fall backward into the arms of strangers without hesitating or looking over her shoulder. She learned to fall freely, with her muscles relaxed and her mind open..." So begins Martha McPhee's first novel,
Bright Angel Time, a story rooted in the freewheeling, free-falling decade of the 1970s. For Kate, the tale's narrator, life starts to crumble the day of the first moon landing. That is when her father takes off with his lover and leaves his family high and dry. Soon after, Kate's mother, Eve, falls in love with Anton, a man with a smarmy charisma that draws one in even as it invites second thoughts. A hippie pied piper, Anton lures Eve and her three daughters into a cross-country odyssey from New Jersey to a commune in Big Sur. There his own children from a previous marriage join the menagerie.
McPhee captures the era when women's liberation mixed with notions of free love led to sexual license, and Gestalt therapy promised enlightenment. Seen through the eyes of Kate and her two sisters, this is not so much a time of freedom as one of confusion, adult carelessness, and neglect. Kate's steely-eyed view of her parents' world, combined with McPhee's brilliant imagery and deft characterization, makes this '70s-era tale a book for the '90s.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From School Library Journal
YA-The world, according to eight-year-old Kate, is coming apart. Her father has left and her mother is distraught and angry. Kate narrates this tale of a journey she takes in 1970, the first leg of which is with her mother and two older sisters cross country to the West Coast. There her mother joins Anton, an itinerant therapist she had fallen for earlier, literally, while doing the "trust" exercise of falling backwards into waiting arms. Kate's pilgrimage continues as they travel with Anton and his children through the Southwest in a camper. The girl's life, once rock solid, becomes airy and chaotic, with glimpses of sex and drugs, friendship and passion. Kate clings to durable scraps of her life-road maps, a rock with gold her geologist father gave her, and the names of the geologic formations he loved to say, such as Bright Angel Shale. McPhee's flowing first novel, rich with the emotions of loss and love, captures the feelings of childhood. The author writes with humor, compassion, and a strong sense of location and the effects of dislocation. Kate is a sometimes charming, sometimes tragic, but never sentimental child. Her observations are sharp and true whether her eye is turned to the reckless, floundering adults or the shimmering heat and beauty of the desert. In the novel's pivotal scene, which takes place in the Grand Canyon, Kate comes to realize that she is more resilient than she thought. She knows that she will endure.
Susanne Bardelson, Wheat Ridge Public Library, Jefferson County, COCopyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
