Rain (Hardcover)

by Kirsty Gunn (Author) "UP IN THAT PART the water smelled rivery..." (more)
Key Phrases: Jim Little

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
New Zealand-born Gunn's tone is so sure and her storytelling so seductive in this haunting first novel told in the first-person voice of 13-year-old Janey Phelon that we are coerced into being spectators at a sacrifice. Janey and her younger brother, Jim Little, are the children of alcoholic parents in England. Janey serves as a surrogate mother to Jim, since their mother has become too concerned with cocktails to be able to do much nurturing; she tries to protect the frail boy, who seems to suffer more than she from the unparented life they lead amidst the clinking of glasses and the tinkling of late-night drunken laughter. Yearning to escape the hell their parents have created of their summer house, the children wander the lakes and rivers playing at "Lost Boys." "It will always be only my brother I'll care for," Janey promises herself. Only a child herself, however, Janey is unable to protect Jim from the dangers that lurk in the world beyond their fantasies. Nor can she protect herself from her own awakened adolescent sexuality. In lean yet lyrical prose, Gunn captures the voice and experience of childhood, the charismatic alcoholism of the kids' mother and the sad resignation of their father, who carries a bottle and a bowl of lemons wherever he goes. Sensuous water images and descriptions of the lake lend admirable cohesion to a novella that is most harrowing at precisely those moments when its prose is most dispassionate. 20,000 first printing; first serial to Grand Street; author tour.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
The Coleridge quote "Water, water everywhere,/Nor any drop to drink" effectively describes the emotional landscape of Gunn's first novel, a fine literary debut. Gunn herself beautifully details the dangerous emotional depths that the novel's young narrator, Janey, must tread. Throughout the slender volume, Janey serves as lifeguard and surrogate mother to her younger brother, Jim. Despite their parents' neglect, the two enjoy their summer residence "where the lake is lapping into endless night, slipping away from us, always further and further, until even the dark sky is filled with stars and water." As in similar novels subtly rendering the horrors of childhood such as Rebecca Stowe's Not the End of the World (LJ 1/92), Janey is sadly not prepared to meet the challenges of deeper and darker adult waters-no matter how well she swims or how tenderly she loves her brother. Readers may not be prepared for this short read to end, but they will enjoy arriving there.
Faye A. Chadwell, Univ. of Oregon Lib., Eugene
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 95 pages
• Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Pr (April 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0871135922
• ISBN-13: 978-0871135926
• Product Dimensions: 7.3 x 5.2 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,668,837 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a child'd world in a the jewel of a drop of RAIN, March 1, 2002

By	Larry L. Looney (Austin, Texas USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Rain (Paperback)

It's amazing the amount of emotion and insight Kirsty Gunn has managed to contain in this brief book. The story is told from the point of view of 12 year-old Janey, looking back as an adult on a pivotal summer spent at a house nestled by a lake in New Zealand with her little brother Jimmy and her parents. Janey loves her brother intensely -- at times she seems more like a parent to him than a sibling. He is the center of her life, and they spend hours and hours together each day, away from the house, away from their parents, usually in or near to the lake.

The parents in this story are not abusive -- at least, not overtly -- and it seems that they do love their children. Abuse isn't always about hitting and bruising -- it can be just as devastating when it is psychological. I was left with the impression that they were unsure how to act as parents. Each night of the summer, in the lake house, they host parties for their neighbors and friends. If the children don't manage to slip upstairs to their rooms unnoticed, they are called upon by the parents to perform for the guests -- or at the very least, to be put upon display. The impression is given that they did this to give substance to their union, to show that their were indeed fruits to their marriage, that it was real.

Through a marvelous style and pace of narration, the young Janey allows us to peer into her life -- we see and hear and feel things very believably and accurately from her perspective. The success of Gunn's attempt to do this attests to a formidable talent within her. The physical details are given life by the child's voice and observations -- and it rings very true, focusing on the things that a child would notice, the things that speak to her through the years and curtains of memory.

I can heartily recommend this book -- I enjoyed it much more than the author's THIS PLACE YOU RETURN TO IS HOME collection of short stories.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars An Intriguing Story Weaved with Vivid Imagery..., May 3, 2002

By	Beatrice "Bea Bea" (Hollywood, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Rain (Paperback)

Janey and her family spend their summers at their lakeside vacation home. The lake is a refuge for Janey and her little brother Jim, a place where they can get away from their parent's endless parties and the suffocating heat. Janey sees Jim as her child and her mother as an untouchable object of beauty that even her father cannot touch. When Janey realizes her mother's friend wants Janey, she gives into him leaving her young brother to spend his time playing alone as their parents stay in the vacation home.

This novel is a fast read filled with vivid descriptions of the lake, rain, water and just about everything else. The imagery is beautiful but at the same time too much description of the environment clogs the details of story. There are only so many times you can read about what the lake looks like, especially since you got it the first time around. The details of the story fall second to the environmental description but the story was an interesting one even though I was left wanting more details.

The poetry-like writing style distances the reader from the emotional aspects of the story. Even though I understood what Janey and her father felt, I never became involved to the extent that it affected me. The climax of the story was anti-climatic and mundane in it's instructional execution. I felt this novel, though beautifully poetic, could have been so much more.

However, I am looking forward to the movie which opens in theatres today. I am hoping that the visual execution will live up to this story's potential.

5.0 out of 5 stars Haunting, tragic and gorgeous, July 8, 2008

By	J. Loscheider "No one knows I'm a radical" (Midwest) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Rain (Paperback)

This is one of the most engrossing 20th century fictions I've read. The narrative is lyrical and almost dreamlike, which shifts the reader's mindscape twice: once to distant memories of childhood and the open-eyed wonder of coming of age, and once again to the emotional distance that we must put between ourselves and those hardest moments.

Gunn's voice is often dark and macabre - at times you feel for Janey's abandonment amidst her hard-partying parents and the adults who pay all forms of discomforting attention to her. The prose is tactile, yet fluid, a word on the tongue and a fleeting sensation of what was and will never again be.