Shut the Door [Hardcover]

Amanda Marquit (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 9, 2004

In the vein of "American Beauty," Shut the Door offers a glimpse into the world of a family in crisis. It focuses on two teenage sisters struggling to carve their identities as young adults, taking risks and undergoing disturbing transformations that go unchallenged by their emotionally absent parents. Meanwhile, their parents' marriage is disintegrating and no longer provides the support the girls so desperately need. Their father's prolonged absence on a business trip provides the impetus to reevaluate family roles and relationships--and the choices made are shocking. This evocative family portrait reveals just what happens when our support system falls away and we become disconnected from the ones we love the most.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

"To Mom, Dad, and Adam, for being the family upon which this book is based—just kidding." With this tongue-in-cheek dedication, 16-year-old Marquit displays a sense of humor that her blunt, melodramatic profile of a dysfunctional family otherwise mostly lacks. When restless head of the family Harry flies off on a business trip to Cleveland ("For once he felt free. And he loved this feeling"), his wife, Beatrice, is consumed by her need for him and comforts herself by robotically cooking his favorite meals ("Guess what? I'm making brisket tonight"). In the meantime, she neglects 16-year-old Lilli and 17-year-old Vivian—a bad move, because sexpot Lilli develops a crush on a college boy and a nasty habit of cutting herself, while awkward Vivian abruptly gets dyed, pierced and tattooed, and cultivates an eating disorder. It's to Marquit's credit that she makes an effort to get inside the heads of all four of her characters, and her breathy, italics-heavy narration and dark subject matter occasionally echo Joyce Carol Oates. Still, there's an emotional flatness to the story of Harry's eventual fling and Bea's nervous breakdown, and Lilli and Vivian's misadventures are only slightly more convincing. Marquit is at least as talented as fellow precocious teen author Nick Donell, but like Twelve, this is more youthful feat than fully fledged fiction.
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Review

"Could it really be that Amanda wrote this book when she was only sixteen? In a fugue of distinct voices, Marquit pulls us inside the dangerous fault lines of a family about to earthquake-a neglected wife sinking into madness, a husband adrift on a never-ending business trip, and two teenage daughters desperately trying to escape their lives by forging new ones. A prismatic page-turner about the lies we tell ourselves and each other, and the inventions we cling to--all from a young scribe who's well on her way to brilliance."
- Caroline Leavitt, author of Girls in Trouble

"Marquit skillfully interweaves recurring motifs....Sure to attract a Gen-Y following and further traumatize parents." --Kirkus

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press; First Edition edition (December 9, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312319290
• ISBN-13: 978-0312319298
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,638,136 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars intriguing look at a middle class family, March 8, 2006

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Shut the Door (Paperback)

Harry is in Cleveland on business for two weeks. His wife Beatrice misses making him breakfast as their daughters seventeen years old Vivian and sixteen years old Lilliana make their own meals. To pass time as she waits for Harry to return, Beatrice continues to prepare her spouse's favorite meals.

Harry, on the other hand, is elated to escape his two tedious roles of husband and father. He plans to risk everything to find some fun and perhaps even purpose while in Cleveland.

Neither seems aware that two teens live in their household. For instance Lilli has sex with older males in her bedroom while mom cooks. However, she has met her match in her guitar teacher Paul who rejects her siren's lure so she reacts by mutilating herself. The studious virginal Vivian decides to reengineer herself with a piercing, dye, a tattoo, and a food disorder so that she can gain entrance to the in crowd, but that fails when high school Queen Katerina tricks her into lesbian posing. Still she is on her way to sexual freedom even as her sibling turns to chastity.

SHUT THE DOOR is an intriguing look at a middle class family whose set roles no longer provide solace so except for Bea still making brisket each seeks something new that devastates the "truce" between them. The character driven story line is at its strongest in the first three quarters of the novel as the audience becomes intimately involved with each character as perspectives rotates between them. Ironically the tale loses a bit of steam once the cast is fully known though the plot contains a surprisingly powerful closing twist. Amanda Marquit provides a fascinating family drama starring four individuals who no longer know one another though they live under the same roof.

Harriet Klausner

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars a worthy first effort, February 3, 2005

By 

Frank Wheeler "Revolutionary Road" (Scottsdale, AZ United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Shut the Door (Hardcover)

Spoon-fed and predictable narrative, strong dialogue. While I have nothing short of utter awe and amazement that a 16-year-old wrote this novel, I will suggest that this entire premise of the nucear-suburban-family-run-amok can be grasped in brilliant clarity in the classic Richard Yates novel, REVOLUTIONARY ROAD.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars good premise, dragging writing, September 24, 2006

By 

Kristen L. Fischer "Author of Ramen Noodles, ... (nj) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Shut the Door (Paperback)

great characters but this book dragged. i skimmed the last 40 pages to see what happened. it was much of the same...