Sweet & Crazy [Hardcover]

Patty Dann (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 19, 2003

Poignant and bittersweet, Sweet & Crazy is the story of a single mother coping with the extremes of life.

At thirty-nine, Hanna Painter has returned to her hometown of Ash Creek, Ohio. Since Hanna's husband, Ed, has died of cancer, Hanna has been raising her precocious four-year old son, Pete, on her own. Mother and son are dealing with their loss in different ways. Hanna is teaching older women to write their life stories at the local YMCA. Pete starts kindergarten and has quickly found a best friend in Omar, the Indian son of Mazur, who runs the local cleaners.

Next door to Hanna and Pete lives Thomas Winton, a provocative middle-aged man who works as a cooper at the eighteenth century colonial restoration outside of town.

Hanna, Thomas, and Pete have just begun to form a fragile new family when the World Trade Center is attacked.

Hanna struggles with the challenges of raising a son alone, romance, and racism as the once-peaceful town of Ash Creek faces the new century.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Using September 11 as a backdrop, Dann (Mermaids) examines issues of death, racism and widowhood in smalltown America. Hanna's husband, Ed, died of brain cancer at 45, leaving her to raise their four-year-old son, Pete. Hanna, 39, who teaches creative writing to retirees at the Y in Ash Creek, Ohio, is just starting to move on when terrorists attack the U.S. For Pete, the tragedy is simple: "A plane of bad guys crashed into a control tower at the airport. Some kids got to leave school early." But for other people in Hanna's world-namely, her friend Mazur, the South Asian-American proprietor of the local dry-cleaning shop-the events have a much greater impact. Mazur becomes a victim of hate crimes, and Hanna even receives threats (due to her Jewish ancestry, an anomaly in Ash Creek). Meanwhile, a concurrent story line reveals Hanna's developing romance with her next-door neighbor, Thomas, who works at an 18th-century colonial village on the edge of town. Although the story is fairly straightforward, it covers some weighty issues, which Dann addresses in sparse, almost childlike prose. "All I wanted was life to be regular for Pete," Hanna thinks immediately after September 11. Later, planning Pete's birthday party, she reports, "The next days I was abuzz with birthday plans, as much as one woman can be abuzz." Although the book feels at times like the first draft of a deeper, richer reflection, Dann nonetheless offers a simple, genuine tale of renewal after loss.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Free-spirit Hanna is a journal-writing teacher at the YMCA in Ash Creek, Ohio, whose husband dies from brain cancer in August 2001. After he's gone, she struggles to be both mother and father to their four-year-old son, Pete. Coming to the rescue is her neighbor, Thomas, who knows to take Pete to the batting cages or to baby-sit when Pete has a fever. Pete's best friend, Omar, is the son of one of the town's few minority families, and it is through their struggle with racism after 9/11 that Hanna and Pete are affected by that tragic day. As she did in her first novel, Mermaids (1983), Dann offers a distinctive concoction of tragedy and humor: a trip with her husband to peruse cemetery plots is leavened by a Reds baseball game emanating from a radio, and Hanna raises her spirits by repeating mantralike snippets from her library book, Widows of the World. Perceptive handling of the rippling effects of 9/11 makes this a unique offering in the ever-popular single-parent genre. Deborah Donovan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press; First Edition edition (September 19, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312316666
• ISBN-13: 978-0312316662
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.3 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,298,520 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

The first word I remember learning as a child was "eavesdrop," and I've been drawn to stories ever since. I've published two novels and two "real" stories, although they come from the same place, a brew of memory and imagination. Having my first book, MERMAIDS, become a movie with Cher, Winona Ryder and Christina Ricci, was a remarkable experience. In college I noticed that my best work was drawn from difficult subject matter. "Don't worry," my professor assured me. "You all will have a lifetime of challenges to write about," and he was right.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Life goes on..., October 19, 2003

By 

Marcia McCullough "Owl's Feathers" (Boston, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sweet & Crazy (Hardcover)

The emotional enormity of the events of 9/11 combined with the personal tragedy of the loss of her husband provide the backdrop against which Hanna Painter strives to maintain a seemingly normal life for her young son Pete...as well as for herself as she rediscovers her passionate side through the attention of next door neighbor, Thomas Winton. Dann deftly captures the dialogue and thinking process of young Pete, and that young child's filtering of events allowed this reader a chance to revisit and reassess thoughts and reactions to the events of September 11 and the aftermath. All in all, a satisfying afternoon of reading.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautifully Written!, April 26, 2005

By 

Carol Weston "bookclubmom" (U.S.A.) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sweet & Crazy (Paperback)

I loved the movie Mermaids (with Cher, Winona Ryder, etc.) so I was delighted to read the novel on which it is based as well as Patty Dann's new novel, Sweet and Crazy. Both are wonderful because the author has a huge heart, an uncanny ear for dialogue, and a sharp eye for poignant and funny details. Sweet and Crazy shows a newly-widowed mother with her young son and handsome neighbor in a way that makes us look at and appreciate anew the people who matter to us most.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A capturing book, October 9, 2003

By 

H.R. (West orange, NJ United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sweet & Crazy (Hardcover)

Reading this book helped me think of my losses through the child's eyes. The writer did an excellent job about capturing the honest sweet words of the 4years old child reacting to the loss of his father. It also captured the widow's feeling about the new challenges in her life, the loss of a loving husband, her 4 years old child and the new romance. The story is capturing, in a very sweet and crazy way