The True Life Story of Isobel Roundtree [Paperback]

Kathleen King (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 1995

Raising herself after her mother abandons her and her father sinks into alcoholism, eleven-year-old Isobel is rescued by Emma Swallow, an ageless giant of a woman who becomes a strong and dependable figure in Isobel's shaky life. Reprint. K.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This debut novel portrays a young girl who's abandoned by her mother and taken in by a woman determined to protect her from the chaos of early 1960s America while instilling in her a sense of hope.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

A debut novel of enormous and pugnacious charm in which the narrator--a ten-year-old girl living with her combative parents on a Kentucky-area hog farm--observes, absorbs, and surmounts the tearing needs and angers of adults, all with a cool savvy. The happy ending she should have--happens. It's 1963, and as Isobel and her father, Prince Roundtree, cringe in the TV's blue light, her mother, Clematis, the beautiful, redhaired, tantrum-flinging, would-be singer and dancer--who lived ``her own fast life in her head''--slams out again. The next time Isobel sees her mother is in ``Sin City,'' where she and Dad gaily go to see Clematis perform in a ``nightclub''--i.e., strip joint. Isobel (who sneaks in) notices that her mother's eyes, when she sees her child, and Dad's eyes both ``filled up with that lost-in- the-wilderness look.'' It's in Sin City that Isobel, lost, lands in the police station, and there meets the six-foot-three Emma Swallow, a vagrant at 29, with silvery eyes and picket teeth. Until Emma shows up at the hog farm (at Isobel's invitation), home is grim and sad; there's also Isobel's fear of a drifter--the ``cat man''--who hangs around asking for Clematis. But while Emma doesn't do stupendous magic when she takes over as housekeeper (she'd promised to turn a policewoman into a toad), she is clean, almost pretty sometimes; Dad is happier; and things are settling down-- when back comes Mother. Before long there's a bombshell blowup, a near-suicide, fire, death, and, for Isobel, some special private knowledge about who she is. A small, happy pleasure in spiky regional diction, with a loamy humor as King suggests a child's world of rich colors and fevered fairy-tale giants, and moments when ``the world stopped while you took the picture.'' -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: Pocket Books (July 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671891855
• ISBN-13: 978-0671891855
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.3 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,829,563 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Caulfield Move Over, July 12, 2003

By 

nathan (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The True Life Story of Isobel Roundtree (Hardcover)

The honesty of the narrator, Isobel Roundtree, never falters. This is a book read in a day without putting it down. I definitely hear echoes of Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird, the world from a wise child's point of view and a book not written for children. Recommended.