Sabbathday River [Hardcover]

Jean Hanff Korelitz (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1999

A big, suspenseful, emotionally charged new novel by the author of A Jury of Her Peers.

One warm September morning in 1985, not far from the town of Goddard, New Hampshire, Naomi Roth finds the drowned body of a newborn baby girl floating in the Sabbathday River. The community rapidly fingers Heather Pratt, a young single mother notorious for her affair with a married man, as the prime suspect, and after intensive interrogation by the police, Heather confesses to the crime. When Naomi, following Heather's directions, uncovers the body of a second infant-who was born on the same day as the other baby-on Heather's property, she assumes charges against the girl will be dropped. Instead, to Naomi's amazement, Heather is charged with the murder of both infants.

Naomi, herself something of an outcast in conservative Goddard, is moved and angered by Heather's plight, and goes to work with Judith Friedman, a lawyer, to defend her. But when the truth at the heart of this astonishing case finally comes to light, it is Naomi who must confront how little she has truly understood about her town, her friend, and herself.

Jean Hanff Korelitz has written a powerful, hypnotically readable work that reverberates with enormous impact.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The Sabbathday River explores a rushing stream of themes, beginning with the breaking of several of the Ten Commandments and touching on loss, faith, gender politics, and motherhood as it illuminates the darkness of an unthinkable crime. Naomi Roth--divorced, liberal, feminist, and Jewish--is very much an outsider in Goddard, New Hampshire, though she's lived there for nine years and manages a crafts cooperative that employs many local women. When Naomi finds the body of a murdered newborn floating in the river, the town's normal atmosphere of suspicion intensifies as gossip begins to swirl around its Jezebel, Heather Pratt, who has previously borne a child by a married man. The district attorney extracts a tainted confession from Heather that she gave birth to a new baby by her now-estranged lover and left it for dead. Meanwhile, Naomi finds a second dead newborn in a pond, leading to a charge of not one murder but two--though Heather insists that she had only one baby and that it was stillborn. A furious Naomi convinces Judith Newman, a fellow New Yorker and lawyer new to Goddard, to take on Heather's defense.

Though the prosecution's case is exceedingly farfetched and the D.A. clumsily duplicitous, local sentiment runs deeply against Heather, whose apathy and refusal to face reality annoy even her few supporters. What's more, the case becomes a political football when news organizations and a radical feminist group converge on the town, eager to turn Heather into a symbol of oppression. Judith mounts an impressively cohesive defense, yet in the end help comes from an unexpected source.

After the protracted courtroom drama, the essential puzzle still remains: Whose is the second baby? Oddly, Jean Hanff Korelitz telegraphs the surprise ending disappointingly early, deflating the denouement somewhat. Yet the characters at the book's core--intelligent, analytical, argumentative--and their personal dramas are intriguing enough to overshadow the small faults of plot, making The Sabbathday River a rewarding, if longish, literary mystery. --Barrie Trinkle

From Publishers Weekly

When Naomi Roth pulls the body of a stabbed infant girl from the Sabbathday River, she precipitates an investigation that devastates the small New Hampshire town she hoped to save. Smart and engrossing, this thriller addresses the complex morality behind its characters' behavior with gravity and deep humanity. Idealistic Vista volunteer and New York Jewish liberal in search of a cause, Naomi turns local crafts into a booming catalogue business by the mid-'80s but never quite fits into the tightly knit New England community whose secrets unravel as townsfolk point fingers?mostly at Heather Pratt, the proud and lonely girl who delicately embroiders traditional samplers and unapologetically bears the illegitimate child of a married man. Naomi sees little of the sisterhood she preaches among Heather's co-workers and neighbors, excepting only recent arrival Judith Friedman, a fellow Jewish New Yorker who befriends Naomi and defends the modern-day Hester in court. It turns out, however, that even Judith has her secrets. Korelitz (A Jury of Her Peers) traces the evolution of '60s idealism to '80s self-absorption, feminist vision to emotional chaos, religious devotion to moral decay. After the trial's dramatic climax, the reader is left with disturbing insights into the roots and ramifications of infanticide. Korelitz securely navigates the scientific shoals surrounding the crime. Her rich, often lyrical language occasionally becomes fussy but in general serves her well in conveying local color and atmosphere and in describing the moments of passion and betrayal in this compelling study of modern women with old-fashioned desires. 100,000 first printing; BOMC and QPB main selections; rights sold in Germany and Italy. (Apr.) FYI: Korelitz is married to poet Karl Muldoon.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 504 pages
• Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux (T); 1st edition (April 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374253234
• ISBN-13: 978-0374253233
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (41 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,282,468 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A gripping read, August 5, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Sabbathday River (Hardcover)

This book got under my skin. I found myself putting it down and walking away from it because I was so irritated by a character's behavior. That's how I knew that the author had written a great character--one does not inwardly argue with a character that one does not find believable. I would point out to some of the other reviewers that the book is set in 1984, which was prior to DNA evidence being admissible in trials, I think.

The thing that I loved most about this book was its focus on the myths of sisterhood. In some people's version of a perfect world, women would look out for the interests of women, but since we're humans first, we have all the same faults as men. Thus, as Naomi finds out, the women of Goddard do not rally to the cause of Heather and see her as a victim of patriarchy. They judge her within their culturally conservative context. It's only Naomi, with her utopian visions of feminist collectives, who has to find out that women aren't supportive of other women just because they share a gender.

I thought this book was well-written, well-paced, and well-plotted.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One you can sink into and be riveted by!, February 3, 2001

By 

K. Corn "reviewer" (midwest, United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Sabbathday River (Paperback)

This book has some very minor flaws but I still had to give it 5 stars and here's why: This is one of those rare books that is so well-written and so engrossing that it is impossible to put down. I absolutely hated to finish it. At the heart of the book, is the murder of 2 babies, who may or may not be related and the trial of a woman who may be falsely accused, even though the evidence seems to point to her as the murderer. Behind the main story, however, are the kinds of details that make a book truly come alive, revealing deeper and deeper layers of complexity and mystery as the story unfolds. There is so much here to hold the reader - the descriptions of small town life, characters which are not stereotypical, portrayals of women searching for their identity in the rather constricted community they inhabit. Finally, there is the story itself, which is gripping, intriguing and horrifying. One of my favorite books of the year!

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars AN UNFORGETTABLE BOOK, February 2, 2000

By 

redrobin47 "rgrus" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sabbathday River (Hardcover)

As an English teacher in a high school, I am always interested in finding wonderful contemporary novels -- by women -- for my students. This novel was impossible to put down, and in addition, I found that I wanted to savor each word, and I read it very slowly, an unusual feat for me, since I tend to devour my books in one bite. The characterization of the protagonist was real and the events through which she lived, riveting! The novel strode toward a climax of high power. I am recommending it to my book group, and to whomever I meet. Not since THE SHIPPING NEWS have I been so taken with a novel!