Join Amazon Prime and ship Two-Day for free and Overnight for $3.99. Already a member? Sign in.
|
|||||||||||||
Better Together
Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought
Mermaids by Patty Dann  (4)
|
The Baby Boat: A Memoir of Adoption by Patty Dann (3)
|
The Baby Boat: A Memoir of Adoption by Patty Dann (3)
|
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
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
Would you like to |
