Clever, precocious Ellen is the only one of the four closely knit Van Bemmel children who dreads the coming of her new baby sister. She is a woman haunted by the memories of her dead family and the horrific tragedy which overtook them 25 years earlier.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Gothic novel is not only alive, it?s been improved.,
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This review is from: Heart of Stone (Paperback)
This terrifying, bone-chilling novel does not depend on mere events, no matter how horrific, for its stunning effects. Dorrestein is much too clever a writer for that. Instead, she recreates with great psychological astuteness the inner workings of main character Ellen Van Bemmel's mind, revealing her memories from the age of twelve to adulthood in a seemingly random sequence, as Ellen allows herself first to remember, and later accept, the unimaginable trauma she has experienced as a child.This trauma is made even more dramatic for the reader because it contrasts so starkly with lovely vignettes of the large, happy family we admire and feel part of in the beginning of the book. Ellen's siblings--sister Billie, brother Kester, and Michael, nicknamed Carlos-- are in every way delightful, normal children, experiencing the same joys and humorous adventures that most readers will have experienced, with parents who are so in love they can hardly keep their hands off each other. It is easy to admire, and even envy, such a family. And then the idyll abruptly ends, and we don't know exactly how or why. Slowly, inexorably, details are revealed which put Ellen's current life into perspective. A 37-year-old single woman, recently divorced and pregnant as a result of a brief encounter, Ellen has purchased the house where disaster long ago struck her family, and there she awaits the birth of her baby and thinks about the past. Dorrestein is the consummate literary juggler here as she throws Ellen's innumerable memories, partial memories, and suspicions into the air of her story and manages to keep them all suspended until the heart-stopping, breath-taking conclusion. I'm sure many readers will feel compelled to keep reading this book well into the night--the agony of finding out the details so slowly is more than some of us are willing to bear. A most delicious horror story, especially memorable because Ellen seems so like ourselves. Mary Whipple
4.0 out of 5 stars
A heartbreaking quest for forgiveness...,
By Luan Gaines "luansos" (Dana Point, CA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER) (VINE VOICE) (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)
This review is from: Heart of Stone (Paperback)
Ellen informs the reader from the very beginning that she has escaped from a nightmare, a waking dream that has haunted every action since her 12th birthday. We discover what happened, page by taunting page, until finally glimpsing the enormity of Ellen's alienation. The horrific details are revealed slowly, building a sense of impending doom. What might have been a simple Gothic mystery, is instead a journey toward salvation. Alternating events, present and past, serve as the author's vehicle.I knew from the first page that this small, powerful book would break my heart. What begins as the tale of happy, bustling family life, becomes the macabre unraveling of a crime so heinous, that the surviving daughter can barely function years after the event. At twelve years of age Ellen experienced a bitter lesson: home, the safest place for a child, is transformed, at the blink of an eye, into the most dangerous place, the site of an unspeakable crime. As one of the two remaining siblings, Ellen has spent her years promiscuously squandering herself with an air of false bravado and self-hate. Now pregnant with a stranger's child, in the middle of a divorce, Ellen moves into the vacant family home, recently put on the market. Drawn into the familiar rooms, where it all began and ended so tragically, this sojourn is a means to salvation, unconscious or not. Ellen confronts the demons that pollute her waking moments. The reward is in the journey itself, step by step, as Ellen unlocks the chains of the past and finds the way home to her authentic self. (pp) Luan Gaines/2005.
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