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Overview
Clara Brodeur has spent her entire adult life pulling herself away from her famous mother, the renowned and controversial photographer Ruth Dunne, whose towering reputation rests on the unsettling nude portraits she took of her young daughter.
At age eighteen, sick of her notoriety as “the girl in the pictures,” Clara fled New York City, settling and making her own family in small-town Maine. But years later, when Ruth reaches out from her deathbed, Clara suddenly finds herself drawn back to the past she thought she had escaped. From the beloved author of Family History and Slow Motion, a spellbinding novel that asks: How do we forgive those who failed to protect us?
Synopsis
This spellbinding novel about art, fame, ambition, and family explores a provocative question: Is it possible for a mother to be true to herself and true to her children at the same time? This brilliant examination of motherhood—-a novel that pits artistic inspiration against maternal obligation and asks whether the two can ever be fully reconciled—-explores the limits and duties of family loyalties, and even of love. Gripping, haunting, and psychologically complex.
The New York Times - Erica Wagner
You could say…that the novel's central proposition is trite: how will Clara face the demons of her past? Yet all universal dilemmas—and this is certainly one—could be dismissed as trite. The truth is they face us all, and it is the novelist's job to breathe life into them one way or another, and this is something Shapiro does very well indeed. The strength of this novel is its particularity, its specificity, whether Shapiro is raking over the changes wrought by the years to the Upper West Side or describing Clara's sense of dislocation as she attempts to blend in with the other moms on the Maine island…
Editorials
Erica Wagner
You could say…that the novel's central proposition is trite: how will Clara face the demons of her past? Yet all universal dilemmas—and this is certainly one—could be dismissed as trite. The truth is they face us all, and it is the novelist's job to breathe life into them one way or another, and this is something Shapiro does very well indeed. The strength of this novel is its particularity, its specificity, whether Shapiro is raking over the changes wrought by the years to the Upper West Side or describing Clara's sense of dislocation as she attempts to blend in with the other moms on the Maine island…—The New York Times
Publishers Weekly
Clara, the protagonist of Shapiro's uneven fifth novel (after Family History), is the youngest daughter and muse of Ruth Dunne, a famous Manhattan photographer who made her name shooting Sally Mann–style (read: nude and provocative) photos of a young Clara. Unable to bear the humiliation of being "the girl in those pictures," Clara runs away from home at 18. Fourteen years later and still estranged from her mother, Clara's living in Maine with her husband and daughter when her older sister calls and tells her Ruth is in failing health. Clara travels back to Manhattan, where she comes to terms with her family and herself. Though Clara's frequent bemoaning of her emotional scars tries the reader's patience, Shapiro's sharp depictions of love and shame go a long way toward putting the self-pity into relief. It's unfortunate that Ruth fails to comes across as anything more than a narcissistic artist, but the novel offers some fine insights into marriage, the making of art and the often difficult mother-daughter dynamic. (Apr.)
Copyright 2007 Reed Business InformationLibrary Journal
It has been 14 years since Clara last saw or spoke to her mother, the renowned photographer Ruth Dunne, when her sister calls to say that Ruth is dying of lung cancer. Returning home to New York, Clara is forced to revisit her feelings about Ruth's work, particularly the subversive, invasive photographs of Clara from age three to 14, while dealing with Ruth's inevitable decline toward death. The story unfolds beautifully, drawing the reader into the family drama, while Shapiro (Family History) creates a sense of uneasy secrecy about Ruth and Clara's relationship by revealing only a few details at a time. Oprah's Book Club readers or fans of Jodi Picoult will enjoy this psychologically gripping book, and there will be a reading group guide available. Recommended for most libraries.—Amy Ford