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Dear Zoe

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Dear Zoe by Philip Beard is this author's debut book. And what a debut this book is in my opinion. This is a book to be read not once, but several times. And each time one can explore some new aspect of a sad tale from which not only the characters in this book can learn from but something which teaches all of us about life and loss.

Tess's youngest sister dies on September 11th but not as a result of the Twin Towers tragedy. Unfortunately While waiting for the school bus, Tess takes her eyes off her sister, Zoe for a couple of minutes and when Zoe wanders off and into the street, she is hit and killed by a reckless driver.

The death of a sibling is horrific at any age but for Tess the guilt is even greater. Zoe was Tess's half sister -- the child of her mother's second marriage and the beloved youngest child of this family. Tess is faced with unbearable agony and guilt over this event and asks herself many questions as the family tries to recover. First and foremost Tess asks herself how a devoted older sister will ever cope with her younger sisters death? And how does she cope with the fact that she was at fault for her sister's death when she turned away just for that moment? How will she ever cope with the fact that in that moment when she turned away she was finding out about the 9/11 tragedy in New York City? And the final question posed to her that day will forever haunt her when her mother asked, "Where's Zoe?" And most of all how will Tess cope with the fact that while the world at large is mourning a terrorist attack in Manhattan her sister's death goes almost unnoticed.

Dear Zoe is a letter to Zoe from Tess basically their first year without her. More than that thought this book tells the story, in frank and poignant passages, how Tess not only came to terms with Zoe's death but how she also came to terms with her part in this tragedy and to forgive herself. But for Tess to deal with her part in the tragedy and come to grips with this isn't easy. The book is filled with events during that long year and how Tess grows up and ventures into almost another world as she goes to live with her negligent father and finds herself falling in love with the boy next door who may or may not be right for Tess. While Dear Zoe deals with the tragedy of Zoe's death, in a sense it deals more with Tess's coming of age as she deals with the love for her lost sister, for the love her family provides for one another, the love her errant father shows towards her and Tess's. And as painful as it is for us to read this book, we know that Tess will come out of this overwhelmingly sad even much stronger and wiser for knowing about the power of love and forgiveness.

In many respects this book, with a strong young female adolescent character, reminded me of the main character from The Usual Rules by Joyce Maynard and Katie Nash from the Durable Goods trilogy by Elizabeth Berg. Each of these books provided me with characters I felt I knew well and ones I won't ever forget.

I highly recommend all of the above mentioned books and now look forward to Philip Beard's next book. I see a bright future ahead for both this author and his main character.

A child's death is surely one of life's most painful experiences. It is, perhaps even more heartrending when one of the grief stricken is little more than a child herself. In this fully realized fiction debut by Philip Beard just such a scenario is presented. Tess, is the guilt ridden mourner, and Zoe, is her three-year-old sister, killed by a hit-and-run driver.

Tess's story is told in the form of letters written to Zoe, and read by voice actress Cassandra Morris. It's a triumphant performance, never soaked in sentimentality but an uncompromising rendering of the thoughts and experiences undergone by Tess following her little sister's death.

A mere 15 years old, Tess is almost overcome by feelings of guilt because she saw the accident; it occurred when Zoe was in her care. That's certainly enough to hobble even the most mature. We hear Tess's struggle as she first leaves the home she shares with her mother and stepfather to move in with her birth father, a man with mega dreams and minor realizations. Nonetheless, he's a good man and cares for Tess.

Like many other girls her age she soon finds herself attracted to a boy, and lands a summer job. She seems on the road to healing until the unexpected happens and she is confronted with some immutable truths.

- Gail Cooke

I didn't know what I was in for when I picked up this book from my library. The title intrigued me, and the inside jacket information made me check it out. It looked good, yes, but I couldn't have imagined just how good until I read it.

I won't go into a synopsis as that's been done a bunch of times already. I'll just say that Philip Beard is nothing short of brilliant, right up there with Alice Sebold. His characters are enormously human, and they are all brought out in 3-D equally.

His ability to turn a phrase is manifested in every paragraph. It is evident that the depth to which he loves his characters is endless.

My emotions were brought to the surface on numerous (more than numerous, really) occasions, and not manipulatively. This story will live in the same place in my heart where The Lovely Bones resides.

Just before the first anniversary of the hit-and-run death of Tess deNunzio's 3-year-old sister, Zoe, and, only peripherally the first anniversary of September 11, Tess writes to her deceased sister, "sometimes I still miss you so much it feels like someone is pushing their finger into the base of my throat and I cry . . . ." Yes, that's exactly how it feels! I swear, Philip Beard lives inside Tess's head. And when Beard/Tess continues, "each time it happens it feels like I'm going to have a little longer until it happens again and usually I do. It's not that I'm missing you less, It's more like I'm finding a place to keep you." Can anyone think of better words to describe their memories of a loved one lost as the years pass?

If you still yearn for the visions of Susie Salmon in "The Lovely Bones", this is the next great book, one that is, for unknown reasons, still very much under the radar of best-sellerdom. On just about every page, I had to stop and taste over and over again the small stark gems of prose that so exquisitely touch on this 15-year-old narrator. I hope to read more from this amazing author.

Publisher's Weekly complains that "Most problematically, however, September 11 feels like a giant peg on which a small (but lovely) coat has been hung." That IS exactly the point. As Tess explains how her family will spend the first anniversary watching home videos and talking about Zoe "while the world is remembering everyone else", those who grieve are never alone -- "that on any day you could pick there are thousands and thousands of little deaths, tiny tragedies, and that all of them matter".

Dear Zoe is a powerful story of loss as experienced by the delicate sensibilities of a teenage girl. The author treats the protagonist, Tess, with unwavering respect and great charm as she comes to terms with her sister's accidental death. It's clear that while her family is close knit, the tragedy can only be interpreted and dealt with individually. Tess' reaction is very different than that of her mother, step-father, and younger sister. The juxtaposition with 9/11 makes the point that a tragedy is a tragedy no matter the scale, but also that all forms of grief are important and must be valued. Through Tess' story, which is liberally sprinkled with her clever humor and practical insight, the author reminds us that teenagers are at once fragile yet resilient: while the loss of her sister had a deep impact, Tess' view of life is ultimately balanced by an appreciation of the immediacy of life - including long summer evenings - so we must believe that her repair is achievable. A great reminder for all of us to balance the gravity of death with the magnificence of life. Bravo for a first novel. I look forward to the next novel!

For Tess DeNunzio, the world changed on September 11, 2001. As the country watched the events of that day unfold, Tess also witnessed a tragic scene. She saw her little sister, Zoe, who she was supposed to be minding, struck and killed by a car outside their suburban Pittsburgh home.

DEAR ZOE is written as a letter from fifteen-year-old Tess to the sister she has lost. The epistolary form allows Tess to tell her story with the convincing candor of someone who believes their words will never be read by anyone else. In this debut novel, lawyer-turned-novelist Philip Beard does an admirable job of not only conveying the voice of a teenage girl but also exquisitely portraying a family quietly grieving for a lost child.

Beard doesn't exploit the events of September 11th. He uses that day as a mirror to reflect the simple truth that every death has an impact on the people left behind. As Tess writes to Zoe, "You died in this tiny, silent part of that day.... The hardest part is going to be the day itself, the anniversary. The world will stop. People will cry. They will relive the pictures and the familiar video of what to them felt like the end of the world. But it will be just like before. You won't be any part of what they're thinking about. You'll just be the silence itself. Every living person, even ones who lost no one, will be thinking of all those people who fell out of the sky and no one except Mom and David and Em and me will be thinking of you."

Tess finds no solace in a house with people as grief-stricken as she is and moves in with her real father, an aimless but well-intentioned man. Here she can just be Tess --- not the stepdaughter who doesn't follow the rules, the daughter who can't comprehend the way her mother has chosen to drown her sorrow, or the fractured role model to her half-sister, Emily.

Across town and a world away, Tess finds comfort in her renewed relationship with her father, the puppy who adopts her, a job at a theme park, experimenting with marijuana, and a romance with the troubled but sweet boy next door. As the summer unfolds and leads up to the one-year anniversary of Zoe's death, Tess slowly comes to terms with her feelings of grief and guilt.

DEAR ZOE is likely to earn comparisons to THE LOVELY BONES for its depiction of a family coping with the sudden and violent death of a child. But it also brings to mind another bestseller, THE SECRET LIFE OF BEES, which shares a similar narrative voice and a main character trying to cope with her complicity in the death of a loved one.

Whatever comparisons are drawn, there is no doubt that this book is a gem all its own. With DEAR ZOE, Philip Beard has accomplished quite a feat. He makes us believe that only Tess could tell this story.

--- Reviewed by Shannon McKenna

"Maybe 'Z' is the shape of everyone's life," writes Philip Beard. "You're going along in what feels like a straight line, headed for one horizon, the only one as far as you know, and then something happens..."

But my zigs and zags were few in Philip Beard's slim novel, "Dear Zoe." On this level of writing, it's smooth sailing. Beard is a skilled writer, and his style is seamless enough that he accomplishes the very difficult writer's task - not only of crossing genders in this first person narrative by a female, but with the voice of a very young female - all of 15 years old. And he does it convincingly.

So convincingly, in fact, that I felt myself as reader engage as I should, that is, to lose awareness of self and surroundings, soon immersed completely into the storyline and characters. "Dear Zoe" is a letter, written across time, from one sister to another. Zoe, however, will never read this letter. Zoe is gone, killed in a car accident, and this letter is, perhaps, how older sister Tess copes with her loss, her grief, even her guilt.

This extended letter is about Tess but also about her extended family. It is family like any: not without its dysfunctions, not without its baggage and broken places, with elaborate wounds and still healing scars. When a member of a family unexpectedly dies, everyone grieves, each in his or her own way and own pace, and it can at times meld a family together, at others rip apart. Beard portrays all of this messy and zigzagging process, but without any melodrama, always sensing when to draw the appropriate line.

Then comes the true test. Nearing end, the storyline veers into an event in American history that is almost impossible to mention without imploding into melodrama. When I realized the backdrop this author was setting up for his story, I nearly winced, but, wait, what's this? Oh, my. Beard makes it work. Work so well, in fact, that he accomplishes the individualizing of something nationally, even internationally shared, and brings it down to one heart, one life, one experience, felt by one person at a time. This personal tragedy is of a size, immense and miniscule at once, that each reader will be able to absorb and comprehend, and through comprehending the miniscule, the immense suddenly gains full impact. Just as numbers that trail off into endless zero's at some point become incomprehensible, so perhaps we as human beings cannot truly comprehend tragedy unless it happens one soul at a time, passed gently on from one hand into the next.

Having accomplished this feat, the author, and "Dear Zoe," has earned my highest recommendation.

I reside in the same Pittsburgh neighborhood as Mr. Beard, so I was a familiar with his long struggle to beat the odds and publish Dear Zoe. An aspiring writer, I was eager to read his debut. Well, Dear Zoe does not disappoint. His characters are fully-formed, and bleed with human frailty. Mr. Beard has an ear for language and eye for detail that I would compare with Larry Brown and Richard Russo. In fact, all three authors share a unique ability to tackle coming-of-age issues of their female protagonists. (Larry Brown with "Fay" and Russo with Tick in "Empire Falls"). Tess DeNunzio is a dynamic character who symbolizes the complexity of growing up in post-9/11 America. This is a great summer read and Mr. Beard is a Pittsburgh original!

Have you ever thought about the people who died on September 11th? I'm not talking about those who were killed by the terrorist attacks, I mean all of the of the people who died that day through much more ordinary circumstances. This is exactly what happened to the title character of this book: Zoe, toddler sister of teenaged Tess and first-grader Em, is killed by a hit-and-run driver right around the same time that the towers are coming down. As a means to come to terms with this monumental loss--one that is so different than the losses experienced by so many others on that date--Tess begins writing to Zoe of her grief.

As a psychologist, I found the portrayal of grief and loss in this novel to be heart-breakingly accurate, from Tess's feelings of guilt to her mother's complete withdrawal to Em's rapid maturation. Give that the book is narrated by a girl in her teens, some might think that the intended audience is young adults (and in fact, it did at times remind me a bit of Judy Blume's Tiger Eyes), but the emotional complexity of the story alone is clearly enough to provide wide-spread adult appeal. Although it is only January, I know that this novel will be on my list of best books read in 2006, and I highly recommend it.

On September 11th, 2001, nearly 3,000 people lost their lives in numerous acts of terrorism against the United States. Even now, five years later, people still ask the question, "Where were you on 9/11?" I remember watching, on that fateful day, news coverage that left me horrified, aghast, and haunted. Where was I on 9/11? At work, on a day that started out like any other and quickly turned into one that no one will ever forget.

If you asked Tess DeNunzio, the fifteen-year-old girl at the center of DEAR ZOE, where she was on 9/11, she'll be quick to tell you that she was at home with her younger half-sister, Zoe, waiting for the school bus like any other day. Except for that one moment, when she let her gaze wander elsewhere, and Zoe ran into the street, into the path of an oncoming car. For Tess and her family, 9/11 is a day they'll never forget.

DEAR ZOE is Tess's letter to Zoe, her way of healing from her sister's death and coming to terms with the changes that have taken place in her extended family. This isn't a story about September 11th, 2001, in the ways that most of us have come to view that day. As Tess puts it, "...just like all the people who go to New York and cry over the rubble. I want to tell them all to go home. I want to tell them to go home and hold their children or their lovers or their parents. I want to tell them that they are using that place as an excuse to be sad and afraid when there will be reason enough for that in their own lives if they just wait."

According to recent facts, nearly 150,000 people die every day. That's about 1.8 people every second. And yet no one seems to remember the other 147,000 people that died on 9/11. That includes myself. Until reading DEAR ZOE, I had never stopped to consider that there were other people around the world who were grieving for lost loved ones who had
nothing to do with an act of terror.

Thanks to Mr. Beard, I now have a new way of looking at that day in history. I also have the story of Tess and Zoe, which will stay with me for much longer than it took for me to read the book. Love, loss, regret, and forgiveness mingle within the pages of DEAR ZOE to form a story that, quite possibly, you'll remember even five years later.

Reviewed by: Jennifer Wardrip, aka "The Genius"