LilMtnCbn
04-11-2004, 06:43 AM
http://www.mlive.com/news/fljournal/features/index.ssf?/base/features-0/10
81679256156590.xml
An all-too-human story
Girls in Trouble' shuns melodrama for truth
GENESEE COUNTY
THE FLINT JOURNAL FIRST EDITION
Sunday, April 11, 2004
By David Forsmark
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
By Caroline Leavitt
St. Martin's Press, $24.95, 356 pp.
Review by David Forsmark
You don't so much read about Caroline Leavitt's characters as live with them
for a little while.
While her characters grapple with crises in life's Big Events -- life, death,
love, health and the like -- Leavitt never resorts to melodrama, and her
understanding that people with even the best intentions are a mix of good and
bad, of loving kindness and selfish ambition, makes her characters vividly
--and frustratingly -- real.
The sense that real life is being played out in front of our eyes among people
we care about makes Leavitt's work as gripping and suspenseful as any thriller.
"Girls in Trouble" has a high potential for melodrama.
In Boston, circa 1987, Sara Rothman is a 15-year-old honor student headed for
an Ivy League education and a bright future.
Her first Big Romance leads to a pregnancy, and after a period of denial and
hiding her condition from her doting but emotionally distant parents, Sara opts
for open adoption.
She chooses George and Eva Rivers, a free-spirited couple in their 40s, who
agree that Sara will be part of their family and allowed to have a relationship
with the baby. Sara's parents have misgivings about the idea, but she dismisses
that concern as merely a selfish desire to put a "problem" behind them.
Sara gives birth to Anne, and there immediately is a subtle shift in their
relationship, as two women intensely love the baby. Each refers to Anne as "my"
daughter.
Tensions increase as Sara spends more time with the Riverses than at her own
home. George chafes under a lack of privacy, and Eva, though she loves Sara and
appreciates her help, is feeling more possessive and threatened by her
presence.
When Eva finally tries to draw a line by stating, "We adopted Anne, we didn't
adopt you," Sara is devastated. Understandably, she is not in an emotional
state that lends itself to a balanced perspective, but her consequent actions
close the door on a relationship with her daughter -- perhaps permanently.
Flashing forward to the current day, we see our cast of characters all getting
along pretty well, but with a definite hole in their lives. Sara, who has
achieved a certain amount of success (though not the lofty heights to which her
parents aspired for her), decides she now has the resources to push for a
reconciliation.
Leavitt never lets her narrative get overwrought or resort to fantastic plot
devises. She keeps both feet firmly on the ground and makes us believe in her
characters and story. "Girls in Trouble" is longish by Leavitt's previous
standards, but it never feels like it, absorbing us in the details of the
characters' lives.
Best of all, truth seems to be Leavitt's only agenda -- not Truth, just truth.
She is interested in how stressful and life-changing situations affect real
people, not in politics or literary pretensions. She wisely stacks the deck in
neither direction.
The author says she was contacted by advocates of open adoption who worried
that showing the complications would hurt their cause, while being criticized
by pro-abortion extremists who said "no one" would carry a baby to term under
Sara's circumstances.
Both positions, of course, are nonsense. One would hope that open adoption
facilitators would cover the possible problems with their clients, and no one
who says "no one" is intellectually honest.
Because "Girls in Trouble" is neither a fluffy soap opera, nor a Wally
Lamb-like wallow in the mire of despair, it probably poses the publisher with
marketing problems. Who should this book be advertised to?
How about everyone? If I'll take a break from Michael Connelly, Preston and
Child, Ed McBain, John Lescroart and be glad I did, then this book has broad
appeal, indeed.
-------------------------
A good friend will come and bail you out of jail . . . but, a true friend will
be sitting next to you saying, "Damn . . . that was fun!"
-----Unknown
81679256156590.xml
An all-too-human story
Girls in Trouble' shuns melodrama for truth
GENESEE COUNTY
THE FLINT JOURNAL FIRST EDITION
Sunday, April 11, 2004
By David Forsmark
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
By Caroline Leavitt
St. Martin's Press, $24.95, 356 pp.
Review by David Forsmark
You don't so much read about Caroline Leavitt's characters as live with them
for a little while.
While her characters grapple with crises in life's Big Events -- life, death,
love, health and the like -- Leavitt never resorts to melodrama, and her
understanding that people with even the best intentions are a mix of good and
bad, of loving kindness and selfish ambition, makes her characters vividly
--and frustratingly -- real.
The sense that real life is being played out in front of our eyes among people
we care about makes Leavitt's work as gripping and suspenseful as any thriller.
"Girls in Trouble" has a high potential for melodrama.
In Boston, circa 1987, Sara Rothman is a 15-year-old honor student headed for
an Ivy League education and a bright future.
Her first Big Romance leads to a pregnancy, and after a period of denial and
hiding her condition from her doting but emotionally distant parents, Sara opts
for open adoption.
She chooses George and Eva Rivers, a free-spirited couple in their 40s, who
agree that Sara will be part of their family and allowed to have a relationship
with the baby. Sara's parents have misgivings about the idea, but she dismisses
that concern as merely a selfish desire to put a "problem" behind them.
Sara gives birth to Anne, and there immediately is a subtle shift in their
relationship, as two women intensely love the baby. Each refers to Anne as "my"
daughter.
Tensions increase as Sara spends more time with the Riverses than at her own
home. George chafes under a lack of privacy, and Eva, though she loves Sara and
appreciates her help, is feeling more possessive and threatened by her
presence.
When Eva finally tries to draw a line by stating, "We adopted Anne, we didn't
adopt you," Sara is devastated. Understandably, she is not in an emotional
state that lends itself to a balanced perspective, but her consequent actions
close the door on a relationship with her daughter -- perhaps permanently.
Flashing forward to the current day, we see our cast of characters all getting
along pretty well, but with a definite hole in their lives. Sara, who has
achieved a certain amount of success (though not the lofty heights to which her
parents aspired for her), decides she now has the resources to push for a
reconciliation.
Leavitt never lets her narrative get overwrought or resort to fantastic plot
devises. She keeps both feet firmly on the ground and makes us believe in her
characters and story. "Girls in Trouble" is longish by Leavitt's previous
standards, but it never feels like it, absorbing us in the details of the
characters' lives.
Best of all, truth seems to be Leavitt's only agenda -- not Truth, just truth.
She is interested in how stressful and life-changing situations affect real
people, not in politics or literary pretensions. She wisely stacks the deck in
neither direction.
The author says she was contacted by advocates of open adoption who worried
that showing the complications would hurt their cause, while being criticized
by pro-abortion extremists who said "no one" would carry a baby to term under
Sara's circumstances.
Both positions, of course, are nonsense. One would hope that open adoption
facilitators would cover the possible problems with their clients, and no one
who says "no one" is intellectually honest.
Because "Girls in Trouble" is neither a fluffy soap opera, nor a Wally
Lamb-like wallow in the mire of despair, it probably poses the publisher with
marketing problems. Who should this book be advertised to?
How about everyone? If I'll take a break from Michael Connelly, Preston and
Child, Ed McBain, John Lescroart and be glad I did, then this book has broad
appeal, indeed.
-------------------------
A good friend will come and bail you out of jail . . . but, a true friend will
be sitting next to you saying, "Damn . . . that was fun!"
-----Unknown
