Synopses & Reviews
Review
"This flawless novel is a character study of a mother (a New York lawyer, bright, dedicated, not-so-bright, the value of her dedication at times questionable) and her daughter Renata, whose drifting leads her back to her mother, to what she despises and relies on. She brings with her a baby daughter, one of the most convincing children in contemporary fiction.
Just as the baby cleverly plays one woman against the other, the author divides the novel into sections turned over to mother and daughter. The volleying effect works brilliantly: as soon as we understand one, the next steps in and slightly adds to or tempers our perceptions. The characters are convincing and complex, and relentless in analyzing themselves and each other. At the end of the novel, at a picnic at Torora State Park, scene of the disaster to come, Gerda, Renata's mother, asks, 'Must one climb to see these waterfalls, Renata?' Her daughter's response is that 'One ... lowers oneself inch by inch.' It is a perfect, subtle statement of their differences: one believes in achieving by rising, the other that one must lower oneself to understand. But what each understands comes apart, and the sense of desperation and of irrevocable loss at the end is both brilliant and numbing." Reviewed by Daniel Weiss, Virginia Quarterly Review (Copyright 2006 Virginia Quarterly Review)