Chicago Tribune
So detailed and illuminating are McGovern's descriptions of Adam ... that she offers, in essence, a primer on the nature of autism. Eye Contact is compelling by virtue of its spiky and in-transition characters. Psychologically rich and sensationally eventful.
Entertainment Weekly
An enticing drama.
New York Daily News
Deeply moving, actually gripping ... Cammie McGovern ... brings to the page an empathetic understanding of the lock that autism places on a mother's child.
People
An airtight thriller that illuminates the exhausting, isolating realities of parenting special- needs children.
Publishers Weekly
A parent's worst nightmare becomes a crusade for justice in McGovern's dynamite second novel (after 2002's The Art of Seeing), set in an unspecified middle-class suburban community. Shortly after Adam, a nine-year-old boy with autism spectrum disorder, and his friend Amelia, a 10-year-old diagnosed with PDD-NOS (pervasive developmental disorder-not otherwise specified), disappear during recess from Greenwood elementary school, a traumatized Adam turns up next to Amelia's body in the nearby woods. Cara, Adam's 30-year-old single mom, helps the police unlock the clues in Adam's mind to try to identify Amelia's killer. Cara finds surprising assistance from 13-year-old Morgan, who's determined to solve the crime in order to distract authorities from his own guilty secret-accidentally starting a fire in the wetlands his lawyer/environmentalist mom was trying to protect. Meticulously researched and emotionally absorbing, this provocative page-turner also addresses an important issue-how to educate and care for children with special needs. Film rights optioned by Julia Roberts. (June) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
When nine-year-old Adam is discovered hiding in the woods beside the body of a classmate, the police are very interested in talking to the only witness to the little girl's murder. Adam is autistic, however, and this traumatic event forces him to retreat to his own silent world. As his mother, Cara, tries to answer the many questions about her son's bizarre behavior, she launches her own investigation and discovers that certain secrets from her past have surfaced, causing her to question everything and everyone around her. McGovern (The Art of Seeing) has written an unusual literary mystery that combines the elements of a women's novel with the gripping aspects of a good suspense story. Taut writing and alternating viewpoints work effectively to lead the reader down several dead ends en route to an unpredictable and satisfying conclusion. This page-turner is a rewarding look into the life of a mother who must discover the truth, even if it ends up hurting her-and her son-in the process. Recommended for all public libraries. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 2/15/06.]-Kellie Gillespie, City of Mesa Lib., AZ Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
A ten-year-old girl's murder is witnessed by her autistic schoolmate in this creepy, absorbing literary thriller. McGovern (The Art of Seeing, 2002), herself the mother of an autistic child, builds wrenching drama from her rich premise: Beautiful, unreachable Adam had entered the woods bordering his school with the victim, but cannot communicate what he may have seen or heard. As details accumulate from the subsequent police investigation, we also get gradual disclosures about Adam's single mother, Cara, in particular her past and present attempts to give her son a life while simultaneously protecting him from the pressures and demands of a world he inhabits and comprehends only selectively. Had the author focused more tightly on this poignant mother-son relationship, she might have avoided the diffusion of the story's central mystery among too many other interconnected characters: troubled adolescent boy Morgan, whose willed friendship with Adam promises him much-needed expiation for his own "crime"; Cara's former childhood friend Suzette, sunk in agoraphobia and clinical depression; their common friend Kevin, brain-damaged in a childhood bicycle accident and haunted by unrealized possibilities; and endangered schoolboy Chris, both pathetic victim and calculating, determined avenger. Their stories help make this a genuine page-turner, and McGovern springs numerous plot-worthy surprises. But their narrow suburban world is populated by an excessive number of damaged souls laboring to rebuild their lives; it all reads too much as case study. Nevertheless, the narrative moves like a freight train, and its conclusion will leave no reader unmoved. The unforgettable Adam is both a charmer and,in his distinctively quiet way, a hero. Despite some flaws, a generally successful combination of compassionate domestic realism and pulse-rattling suspense.
