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4.0 out of 5 stars
The Fringe-Dwellers of trickle-down economics, July 27, 2003
This review is from: Sunset Terrace: A Novel (Hardcover)
City streets are the playgrounds of the children who live at Sunset Terrace, and patches of dead grass, trash-strewn lots and cracked concrete bordered by battered chain link fencing. Summer days are spent stealing cigarettes and candy from the neighborhood market. These are the beneficiaries of the trickle-down policies of the '80's, living in a vast economic wasteland, families kept together by women who work at minimum wage jobs and buy groceries with food stamps.
Elaine arrives at Sunset Terrace with her two daughters, a year after their father has committed suicide. An itinerant chef, Elaine moved her girls from job to job, motel to motel, all across the country. Hannah, nine, lonely and confused by her father's death, was responsible for younger sister, Daisy, while their mother worked late shifts at various roadside restaurants. Rent-controlled Sunset Terrace, in So. California, is a step up for the small family, a new start.
Hannah wants friends, but doesn't know the rules, ever on the wrong side of belonging. Bridget, an iconoclastic nine-year-old foster-child who lives downstairs, captures Hannah's attention. Bridget is street savvy, already a victim of ... abuse, the kind of child easily dropped through bureaucratic cracks, shuffled from one place to another. While Bridget carefully courts Hannah, Elaine finds herself feeling sorry for the girl, often including Bridget in family gatherings, while unaware of the girl's dark side. Bridget's smart mouth and intimidating behavior draws Hannah like a moth to flame, the vague promise of a walk on the wild side. Hannah is unprepared for the escalating violence of their games, as Bridget is more and more mean-spirited. Eventually, Hannah grows distant, less trusting, disturbed by Bridget's demeanor.
A woman in the complex talks Elaine into attending a Parents-Without-Partners function, where Elaine meets an eligible man, Sam. For Elaine, the genial and loving Sam is unexpected, like winning the Cinderella lottery, a way out. Without him, they are trapped in an indifferent world, surrounded on all sides by poverty and social decay, their sojourn at Sunset Terrace only a respite on a downhill slide. During their last few days, Hannah and Bridget clash frequently, especially when Hannah defends her younger sister from Bridget's unnecessary meanness. Although furious, Hannah agrees to a final game, one that has unexpected and life-changing consequences for both girls.
The families of Sunset Terrace live a marginal existence, prey to unstable financial circumstances. Affordable child-care for working mothers is as realistic as the Emerald City at the end of the Yellow Brick Road. Sunset Terrace is a scathing social commentary on the disastrous effects of poverty and a system that ignores the most vulnerable in our society, sweeping them aside like so much detritus. We are not in Kansas, Dorothy. Meet the fringe-dwellers, one step away from homelessness, dancing as fast as they can. Luan Gaines/2003.
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