Loverboy (Hardcover)

by Victoria Redel (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
In Redel's controlled and convincing tale of a mother's obsession for her child, the first-person narrator endangers the life of her grade-school son, then asks rhetorically, "Has a mother ever loved a child more?" It is a disturbing question, since the entire novel proves to be the narrator's heartfelt demonstration of her single-minded devotion to the raising of her son, Paul. Conceived anonymously ("I never wanted a house and I never wanted a husband," remarks the narrator, who remains nameless and without a definite address), Paul is his mother's central passion; her own perilously solipsistic parents died in a suicide pact. Slavish in her attention to her son, she does not use contractions because they are lazy and calls him by anything (Loverboy, Babydoll) but his name because she cannot bear for him to join the ranks of the ordinary, school-taught drones. Beautifully succinct, lyrically composed chapters give occasionally disturbing glimpses of the narrator gravely ill in a hospital room, but not until the end of the novel does the reader become chillingly aware of how she has resisted the intrusion of the real world. Hints of her obsessive possessiveness crop up strategically: she secretly euthanatizes a sick baby bird they have found so that her son doesn't have to see it die; she lies about doctor appointments in order to take the boy out of school and off on magical junkets together. Painting a convincing portrait of her complex and surprisingly sympathetic narrator, Redel (Where the Road Bottoms Out) makes it possible to empathize with the woman's overwhelming love for her son: the novel succeeds because the reader cannot condemn her.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
"There is no falling in love like falling in love with a child," the anonymous narrator of Redel's first novel rhapsodizes. The daughter of solipsistic parents who killed themselves in a suicide pact, she takes the only bit of advice that they ever gave her ("It would do well to find a passion") and pursues single motherhood with disturbing aplomb. Paul, whom she calls "Loverboy" and "Babydoll," is the result of several one-night stands, and everything is magical between them until Paul starts to take an interest in the real world. When Paul leaves his mother for school and other children, she haunts the playground and makes up visits to the doctor to pull him out of school early. Redel, author of the story collection Where the Road Bottoms Out, writes like an angel about the darkest edge of obsession. This debut is simply excellent. Highly recommended. [Quality Paperback Book Club dual selection.] David Keymer, California State Univ., Stanislau.
- David Keymer, California State Univ., Stanislaus
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Graywolf Press; 1 edition (April 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1555973221
• ISBN-13: 978-1555973223
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,756,252 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a beautiful nightmare, July 18, 2001

By A Customer

This a brilliant, subtle, haunting book. It's a story about mother love, but not the usual story. Pastel cottons and sentimentality are in short supply; in their place we are offered a psychologically nuanced portrait of devotion and adoration changing slowly, inexorably into obsession, convulsion, destruction. Beautifully written (it's not surprising that Victoria Redel is a poet), it seduces the reader into a world whose elements of nightmare become evident only too late. The main character -- a mother whose love of her child is the central passion in her life -- speaks lyrically and convincingly from the pages. Entering her world, we find ourselves spinning in a psychological landscape ever more grotesque. Except that the spinning is so gentle, so gradual, and the unfolding malignancy so subtly drawn, that we can't quite locate the moment when beloved dream becomes nightmare. It's a harrowing story. It is also -- in it's evocation of the intimacy of mother and child, and in it's close observations of the dailiness of parenting -- enchanting. Parents (at least those who tell themselves the truth) -- will find resonances and echos of themselves. But it's not just a book for mothers, or for parents. It's a book for anyone compelled by the complexities of desire, love, intimacy and responsibility. And it is a book for people delighted by fine writing.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars THE IMPORTANCE OF BALANCE IN LIFE..., January 23, 2002

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

Modern music composer Philip Glass used a word from the language of the Hopi Indians as the title of one of his most well-known works: KOYAANISQATSI, which means 'life out of balance'. His music was written as the soundtrack to a film filled with an incredible array of images illustrating this concept -- images of a world, a life, out of balance with nature and with itself. In LOVERBOY, Victoria Redel's amazing novel, we can see that concept borne out in the life of a mother whose concepts of love and motherhood are so twisted by her own experiences as a child that what should be one of a child's greatest blessings, a mother's love, is turned into pure obsession -- a smothering, stifling blanket.

The woman -- whose name we never learn, we can only think of her as 'Paul's mother' -- has good intentions, and, I believe, does actually love her son very dearly. She herself was brought up as an only child by parents who were so in love with each other that their daughter could only feel excluded from their lives, even during 'family' activities. As she narrates her story, often returning to scenes and memories from her childhood, it's easy to feel the pain of loneliness and the 'cold' love of her parents, who very obviously had not the first clue about raising a child, about the lifelong effects their behavior would have on their offspring.

There is a particularly poignant description by the narrator of walking with her parents -- Sybil and Marty, she calls them. Her father strides along the sidewalk, confident and sure of himself -- her mother walks beside him, turned toward him as she walks forward in the same direction, as if she is trying to be closer still. Their daughter trails along behind, feeling ignored to such an extent that she feels she must put on a show, affecting an exaggerated, palsic limp and a twisted facial grimace, so that passers-by will find their attention drawn to her, instead of the loving couple -- her parents -- who walk in front, oblivious to her performance.

As Paul's -- 'Loverboy's' -- mother, she strives for as long as she can to keep him separate from other, 'lesser' children -- and he is, to be sure, an intelligent child, possessed of knowledge of many things of which his peers haven't a clue, thanks to his mother's attention to his 'education'. They frequent libraries and museums together, immersing themselves in books of all types -- no subject is off-limits, and his knowledge of things sometimes shocks and surprises others. He can recognize Bach's 'Brandenberg concerto', or a painting by Van Gogh or Degas -- things of which many adults are ignorant.

The tension in the narrative increases dramatically as the mother has to work harder and harder to keep him from 'mingling with lesser children'. The onset of his school years fill her with unspeakable dread -- she feels trapped and desperate. As we read this story, we feel that something must inevitably 'give' -- we can feel it coming.

Redel's language is shining and luminous. Even the 'rational insanity' (book jacket description) of Paul's mother is, in some ways, understandable -- we can feel empathy and compassion for her. We can feel the terror that exists within her at the thought of turning her child over to the care of others -- even for just the length of a school day.

It is Paul's mother's extreme over-reaction to the upbringing she experienced at the hands of her parents that causes her to swing too far in the opposite direction. There are no indications in the story that she -- or Paul -- has suffered any sexual abuse, or physical maltreatment. The way she has chosen to live her life -- especially the narrative describing the process she chose to become pregnant when she decided she wanted a child -- shows us all too clearly that psychological abuse and neglect can be excruciatingly damaging, while never leaving a welt or a bruise as a tell-tale warning sign for outsiders.

A very harrowing yet delicately composed and executed story -- moving and powerful, not one I will soon forget.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hauntingly beautiful, July 26, 2001

By A Customer

Loverboy is one of the most beautiful, haunting, harrowing, and compelling novels I've read in a long, long time. What's uncanny -- and also terrifying -- is the way Redel makes the mother's obsessive, destructive, and obviously crazy love for her child accessible and approachable. We reject the mother's insanity even as we recognize the echoes of her passion in ourselves. The writing itself is stunning: sparse, clean, and direct, yet able to convey a feeling for scene, emotional nuance, and psychological complexity through its focus on minute details. This is a tour de force that I've recommended to mothers and non-mothers alike.