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The Local News

by Miriam Gershow

The Local News Cover

ISBN13: 9780385527613
ISBN10: 0385527616
Condition: Standard
Dustjacket: Standard
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Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

A deeply moving story of the complicated bond between brother and sister.

Even a decade later, the memories of the year Lydia Pasternak turned sixteen continue to haunt her. As a teenager, Lydia lived in her older brother's shadow. While Danny's athletic skills and good looks established his place with the popular set at school, Lydia's smarts relegated her to the sidelines, where she rolled her eyes at her brother and his meathead friends and suffered his casual cruelty with resigned bewilderment. Though a part of her secretly wished for a return of the easy friendship she and Danny shared as children, another part of her wished Danny would just vanish. And then, one night, he did.

In the year following Danny Pasternak's disappearance, his parents go off the rails, his town buzzes with self-indulgent mourning, and his little sister Lydia finds herself thrust into unwanted celebrity, forced to negotiate her ambivalent — often grudging — grief for a brother she did not particularly like. Suddenly embraced by Danny's old crowd, forgotten by her parents, and drawn into the missing person investigation by her family's intriguing private eye, Lydia both blossoms and struggles to find herself during Danny's absence. But when a trail of clues leads to a shocking outcome in her brother's case, the teenaged Lydia and the adult she will become are irrevocably changed, even now as she reluctantly prepares to return to her hometown.

Relentlessly gripping, often funny, and profoundly moving, The Local News is a powerful exploration of the fraught relationship between a brother and sister and how our siblings define who we are.

Review:

"Bright, precocious but socially awkward Lydia Pasternak reports on the aftermath of her older brother's disappearance in Gershow's accomplished debut. Danny was everything Lydia wasn't: at ease with their parents, popular in school, physically imposing, beloved by the opposite sex. Danny went from being Lydia's playmate in their youth to her tormentor in high school, so his disappearance leaves Lydia with some very mixed feelings, one of which is relief. As time goes on and the weekend search parties prove more and more fruitless, Lydia struggles with the fact that her geeky best friend, David, has feelings for her; she also obsesses over the private investigator hired by the family and allows herself to be sucked into the social world Danny once dominated. Lydia's perspective gives this Lovely Bones - esque story line an unflinching quality as she details the emotional damage that reverberates even through her 10-year high school reunion. Gershow's psychologically acute grasp of the mundane, ugly details that accompany tragedy, combined with an understanding of the tragicomedy of high school, make for a stark and merciless narrative, leavened by Lydia's wry insights." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

Review:

"Unusually credible and precise...deftly heartbreaking." Janet Maslin, New York Times

Review:

"The Local News is the story of a life created around loss...Not a book you're likely to put down once started, nor to forget once finished, a remarkable achievement." Karen Joy Fowler, author of The Jane Austen Book Club

Review:

"Miriam Gershow has a fresh, funny and very engaging voice and a powerful story to tell, and Lydia Pasternak is a character you'll miss long after the book is finished." Beth Gutcheon, author of Still Missing and Good-bye and Amen

Synopsis:

An authentic dissection of public and private grief, The Local News is a moving, memorable debut that explores the complicated bond between siblings.

About the Author

Miriam Gershow was a Fiction Fellow at the University of Wisconsin. Her stories have appeared in the Georgia Review, Black Warrior Review, and Quarterly West, among other journals. She lives in Eugene, Oregon.

What Our Readers Are Saying

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Average customer rating based on 1 comment:

Wendy Robards, July 9, 2009 (view all comments by Wendy Robards)
Lydia Pasternak is fifteen years old when her brother Danny, a popular high school athlete, disappears. First he is there and then he is gone, leaving behind parents who are stunned into a drifting existence centered around finding their son and Lydia, whose ambivalent relationship with Danny overshadows her life.

Before Danny disappeared, Lydia was a bit of a loner. Exceptionally bright and physically immature, her best friend is a boy with whom she enjoys discussing world politics. But after Danny has gone missing, Lydia experiences a surge in her popularity. She is now the sister of a missing person – and Danny’s friends from the football team and the girls who flashed him dazzling smiles begin to include her in their social network.When Lydia is drawn into the investigation by a private detective hired by her parents, she not only begins to uncover the mystery of her brother’s disappearance, but discovers truths about herself.

The Local News, Miriam Gershow’s powerful debut novel, is a nuanced story about Lydia’s coming of age amid this one tragic event in her life. Narrated from Lydia’s point of view, the novel reaches into the psyche of a teenager and examines how it must feel to grow up in the shadow of her popular brother, her parent’s favored child…a boy who Lydia did not always like, but certainly loved.

Not only does The Local News examine the relationship between siblings, but it also explores the power of grief and how that emotion can define our relationships and change our lives…how a single event tainted with loss can change who we become.

Gershow’s prose draws the reader into Lydia’s life quickly – uncovering her strained relationship with her parents, her awkward sexual awakening, her fears and dreams…doubts and guilt. The Local News begs the question: How do we define ourselves? Lydia’s journey begins to answer that question, examining the development of the individual within the greater context of daughter, sister and friend.

Poignant, engaging and sharply imagined, The Local News is a book which will connect with anyone who remembers the pain of being a teenager. Although it is a coming of age story, it is also Danny’s story and the impact his loss has on family and friends. It is a loss the reader feels acutely. Danny is only known to the reader through the eyes of his sister, and yet by the end of the book I felt I knew not only who he was, but who he might have been had fate not intervened.

Gershow has written a very human story – a story which extends beyond the headlines and into the heart of a young girl.

Recommended.
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Product Details

ISBN:
9780385527613
Subtitle:
A Novel
Author:
Gershow, Miriam
Author:
Miriam Gershow
Author:
Miriam Gershow
Publisher:
Spiegel & Grau
Subject:
Young women
Subject:
Brothers
Subject:
Literary
Subject:
Domestic fiction
Subject:
Psychological fiction
Copyright:
Publication Date:
20090224
Binding:
Hardback
Grade Level:
General/trade
Language:
English
Pages:
368
Dimensions:
9.26x6.46x1.43 in. 1.36 lbs.

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The Local News Used Hardcover
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$7.95 In Stock
Product details 368 pages Spiegel & Grau - English 9780385527613 Reviews:
"Publishers Weekly Review" by , "Bright, precocious but socially awkward Lydia Pasternak reports on the aftermath of her older brother's disappearance in Gershow's accomplished debut. Danny was everything Lydia wasn't: at ease with their parents, popular in school, physically imposing, beloved by the opposite sex. Danny went from being Lydia's playmate in their youth to her tormentor in high school, so his disappearance leaves Lydia with some very mixed feelings, one of which is relief. As time goes on and the weekend search parties prove more and more fruitless, Lydia struggles with the fact that her geeky best friend, David, has feelings for her; she also obsesses over the private investigator hired by the family and allows herself to be sucked into the social world Danny once dominated. Lydia's perspective gives this Lovely Bones - esque story line an unflinching quality as she details the emotional damage that reverberates even through her 10-year high school reunion. Gershow's psychologically acute grasp of the mundane, ugly details that accompany tragedy, combined with an understanding of the tragicomedy of high school, make for a stark and merciless narrative, leavened by Lydia's wry insights." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)
"Review" by , "Unusually credible and precise...deftly heartbreaking."
"Review" by , "The Local News is the story of a life created around loss...Not a book you're likely to put down once started, nor to forget once finished, a remarkable achievement."
"Review" by , "Miriam Gershow has a fresh, funny and very engaging voice and a powerful story to tell, and Lydia Pasternak is a character you'll miss long after the book is finished."
"Synopsis" by , An authentic dissection of public and private grief, The Local News is a moving, memorable debut that explores the complicated bond between siblings.
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