Goldengrove
By Francine Prose
(Harper Perennial, Paperback, 9780060560027, 288pp.)
Publication Date: August 20, 2009
Other Editions of This Title: Compact Disc (August 28, 2008), Large Print (August 28, 2008), Hardcover (August 28, 2008)
Categories: General
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Selected by Indie Booksellers for the October 2008 Indie Next ListAfter the sudden death of her beloved older sister, thirteen-year-old Nico finds her life on New England's idyllic Mirror Lake irrevocably altered. Left alone to grope toward understanding, she falls into a seductive, dangerous relationship with her sister's boyfriend. Over one haunted summer, Nico faces that life-changing moment when children realize their parents can no longer help them as she experiences the mystery of loss and recovery. Still, for all the darkness at its heart, Goldengrove is radiant with the lightness of summer and charged by the restless sexual tension of adolescence.
Francine Prose is the author of fifteen books of fiction and the nonfiction New York Times bestseller Reading Like a Writer. She lives in New York City.
"...emotionally authentic...a ravishing novel of the mystery of death and life's assertion."
-Booklist (starred review)
"With perfect pitch and no trace of sentimentality, Prose . . . lands on the precise emotional key for this novel . . . allowing humor and compassion to seep through the cracks of an otherwise dark tale."
-San Francisco Chronicle
"Prose creates characters with real flaws that make the reader both love and hate them. It is easy to put oneself in the position of any of the players..."
-Deseret Morning News
"With a dazzling mix of directness and metaphor, Prose captures the centrifugal and isolating force of grief...Prose exquisitely renders her characters' grief and bafflement."
-Los Angeles Times
"A poignant account of growing up amid sorrow...a tender and moving story of adolescent love."
-Hartford Courant
"A beautiful narrative that defines resilience as the sometimes heartbreaking act of simply living"
-Redbook Magazine
"Beautifully crafted...perhaps her most emotionally satisfying novel."
-Christian Science Monitor
"Arguably, "Goldengrove" is her best book yet."
-Seattle Times
"An exploration of the fragility of adolescent identity and the perilous undertow of grief"
-O magazine
"Deeply touching and absorbing..."
-Publishers Weekly
"Insightful, lyrical... "Goldengrove" is beautifully and simply written...a moving portrait of the search for identity through a landscape of pain and loss."
-St. Louis Post-Dispatch
"Prose's skillful rendering of the human ability to accept hard truths and move on is a poignant lesson for us all."
-Miami Herald
"Francine Prose's new novel is a quiet, clear-eyed, sun-dappled eulogy to lost youth, and a youth lost. . . . [Prose is ] a keen chronicler of human emotion."
-Elle
"Prose locates the life force that gives her narrator the quirky, irreverent but undeniable sound of a survivor. . . . Prose is tremendously skilled."
-Chicago Tribune
"Prose holds up a mirror to grief and family life we can't look away from, revealing their truths on page after page, in beautifully crafted writing."
-Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
"Ms. Prose is perceptive. . . . Her modest-sounding book turns out to be beautifully wrought.... and yields an unexpectedly rich, tart, eye-opening sense of Nico's world."
-New York Times
"A page-turner, thanks to its wholly identifiable, and perfectly flawed, young heroine. A-"
-Entertainment Weekly
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