Many Stones [Hardcover]

Carolyn Coman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 30, 2000

Sixteen-year-old Berry Morgan lives with her mother in Rockville, Maryland, where her mother works as a reading tutor. Berry's father, a lobbyist, lives in San Francisco with his girlfriend. He comes in and out of Berry's life unpredictably. A year and a half ago, he showed up at her school with shocking news: Berry's sister was dead. While working as a volunteer at a school in Capetown, South Africa, Laura had been brutally murdered. Now Berry sets out on a two-week trip to South Africa with her father to attend a memorial service for Laura. He has arranged some other activities as well: a business meeting in Johannesburg during which Berry awaits him at a posh hotel; a guided tour of Soweto by minivan; and three days at Krueger National Park, where they live in round huts and go out spotting giraffes by day and elephants, leopards, and lions by night. Berry and her father's painful journey forces them to look beyond their own grieving and bear witness to a country's tortured search for truth and reconciliation.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

On a two-week pilgrimage to South Africa from Rockville, Maryland, 16-year-old Berry and her estranged father attempt to come to terms with the murder, a year earlier, of Berry's sister Laura when she was volunteering at a Capetown school. Angry, sour, and ferociously cynical, Berry struggles with the concept of "truth and reconciliation," both for South Africa and in her personal life. Her father's efforts to educate his daughter about the country's political climate in the wake of apartheid are met with cold resistance: "He makes whatever is inside me catch fire. I hate everything. And I feel ashamed, which, for all I know, is why my father brought me here--Mr. Expense Account himself..." The delicious oblivion she finds underwater when doing laps on the swim team back home--or kissing her boyfriend Josh--or in the comforting stones she likes to pile on her chest when she's in her room don't seem to help her move beyond her despair and anger.

Carolyn Coman, author of the highly acclaimed and powerful Bee and Jacky, What Jamie Saw, and Tell Me Everything, seems to have direct access to the souls of troubled teens, plumbing the not-always-pretty depths of her characters. But the current-events lessons and the soul-searching of Many Stones don't redeem the novel from its heavy, depressing tone that emanates from Berry's troubled teen self. While the landscape of Berry's psyche is deftly captured, her surly stance is tiresome and relentless, not letting up until the very last pages when she has "the big meltdown" with her father, and then finally finds her voice at her sister's memorial service. (Ages 13 and older) --Emilie Coulter

From Publishers Weekly

Coman (What Jamie Saw) adopts some conventions of the problem novel in this ambitious work about forgiveness. Berry's sister, Laura, has been murdered in South Africa, where she was volunteering at a school, and Berry, still smarting from her divorced father's perceived rejection of the family, is becoming angry and isolated. Early on she explains that she collects stones and stacks them on her chest so that she can feel their heft and "know there's something there to be weighted." Obliged to accompany her loathed father to South Africa for a memorial service, Berry, who narrates, is sure so much time with her father will be disastrous. But when they meet South Africans searching for ways to forgive after apartheid, Berry and her father realize they must begin their own reconciliation. As Berry confronts the devastation of a race of people subjected to degradation, imprisonment and torture, her own experiences come to seem almost trivial by comparison: "I feel smaller and smaller.... It's like big, important history drapes over everything here in South Africa.... Nothing I know comes close to being a matter of life and death," she realizes. The implied parallel, however, is frequently jarringAexactly what has Berry suffered at the hands of her father, and how unforgivable is it? The ending, like the controlling device, is unusually neat for Coman. But there is gripping writing here, from the lightning-quick portraits of passing players to the descriptions of South Africa to the convincingly clipped conversations between daughter and father. And most important, the protagonist's emotional complexities seem uncannily true to life. Ages 12-up. (Oct.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 12 and up
  
• Hardcover: 160 pages
• Publisher: Front Street imprint of Boyds Mills Press; 1st edition (November 30, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1886910553
• ISBN-13: 978-1886910553
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #683,278 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A book about forgiveness, October 30, 2000

By 

Lorraine Berry (Ithaca, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Many Stones (Hardcover)

Many Stones is a multi-layered tale about forgiveness, a process that needs to occur at both the political and personal levels in this incredibly well-told book. Berry is angry, most especially at her father, who has moved 3000 miles away from his family. Now the two of them are on their way to South Africa, ostensibly to participate in a memorial service for Berry's sister, Laura, who went to South Africa to do charity work but who wound up the victim of random violence. When she was alive, Laura was the "favorite" daughter, the daughter that Berry always felt second fiddle to whenever she was in the company of her father and Laura. Berry's father wants to use the trip as an opportunity for him and Berry to make amends, to forgive one another for the wounds they've each inflicted. But, Berry is resistant to doing so. She's just too angry. But, as any student of current events knows, South Africa provides a tremendous example of the power of forgiveness. Berry is over there during the meetings of the Truth Commission, and speaks to a number of people who explain to her that knowing the truth is more valuable than punishing wrong-doers. Thus, the families of victims have chosen to trade forgiveness for knowledge, not revenge. Berry's father obviously hopes his daughter will be so moved to provide the same to him, but as you can imagine, a teenaged girl, who is in pain from a variety of hurts, is not going to be easy to convince. The language of this book is sparse and beautiful. I'm pleased that it was nominated for a National Book Award--deservedly so for taking on such a complex topic and handling it so brilliantly. One last note: There is not a lot of fiction out there that deals with the relationships between fathers and daughters. This is an especially good look at the complexities of those bonds.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Many Stones, December 15, 2000

By 

"slanjack" (Manchester, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Many Stones (Hardcover)

The story is narrated by a high school-age girl, named Berry Morgan. The reader gets to know Berry on a very intense and intimate level as she reveals her emotional pain from her parents divorce, and from the subsequent murder of her older sister, Laura, who had been working at a church-run school for very poor children in Soweto, South Africa. Most of the story takes place on a trip Berry and her father make to South Africa to attend a commemorative service to be held there for Laura a year and a half after her killing. The father is a hard-driving Washington lobbyist who had coached his daughters toward being high achievers in school, sports, and careers, but who had placed their emotional needs second to his own. The story interweaves two themes: the passage of Berry from her emotional pain of loss toward acceptance and future growth, and the parallel passage of South African people who are willing to forgive the injustices and horrors of their apartheid era so that they can get on with building a new life of hope. Berry has to learn from some of the people she encounters that one cannot accept being mired down in past tragedies if one is to grow. The story is so intensely Berry's interior life, and she is so bitter at the beginning, that it might have been too much of a closeup if the writing wasn't so good. Coman's writing unerringly maintains the emotion of Berry's feelings and dialogue with her father throughout the story. There are memorable lines, and the tension of wondering whether Berry will work it all out is unwavering. She strikes out verbally at her father every chance she gets, so that at times we hate her for it, but then she reveals her vulnerability and we forgive her and hope she's at least making progress on her journey of healing. Back-story is revealed only as necessary as we move along in the plot, and this makes the reading very fluid. The ending has a feeling of completeness and hope, and is well-earned.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Many Stones, November 30, 2001

A Kid's Review

This review is from: Many Stones (Hardcover)

"Home? If I were there right now, I'd reach for my pile of stones." In this story, Berry Morgan uses stones as a relief method, by placing them on her stomach, especially since she has a tough family life. Her mother, who tutors mentally challenged kids how to read, write, and talk, is the only normal person in her family. Her father lives in California with his girlfriend, and her sister, Laura who was in South Africa helping the children down there.... Well, she is dead. She was brutally murdered, only a year before Barry and her father go to South Africa for her memorial service.
One day, Barry's Father turns-up at her home is Washington DC, and has asked Berry to come to South Africa with him for Laura's Memorial Service. Barry goes, but with a major chip on her shoulder. Barry has a major problem with her father barging in on her life and wanting her to come with him on an adventure in an unknown country. While they are there for 11 days, her father has planned a little more than just the memorial service. They go to Cape Town, Kruger National Park, and a little bed and breakfast. She is really snippy with her father, and they really don't get along together will at all. But as the trip goes on, the two of them learn their differences and get along better each day. This book is about how two people learn to get along better and as the days that they are together stacks up.. I would recommend this book for kids older than 12, and even adults, because it is a good book and I would reread it any time, that's how good it is.