Goldengrove

Product Description Goldengrove is an emotionally powerful novel about adolescent love and loss from Francine Prose, the New York Times bestselling author of Reading Like a Writer and A Changed Man. Focusing on a young girl facing the consequences of sudden loss after the death of her sister, this masterful coming-of-age work is radiant with the possibility of summer and charged by the restless sexual tension of teenage life. From the Back Cover At the center of Francine Prose’s profoundly moving new novel is a young girl facing the consequences of sudden loss after the death of her sister. As her parents drift toward their own risky consolations, thirteen-year-old Nico is left alone to grope toward understanding and clarity, falling into a seductive, dangerous relationship with her sister’s enigmatic boyfriend.Over one haunted summer, Nico must face that life-changing moment when children realize their parents can no longer help them. She learns about the power of art, of time and place, the mystery of loss and recovery. But for all the darkness at the novel’s heart, the narrative itself is radiant with the lightness of summer and charged by the restless sexual tension of teenage life.Goldengrove takes its place among the great novels of adolescence, beside Henry James’s The Awkward Age and L. P. Hartley’s The Go-Between. About the Author Francine Prose is the author of twenty-one works of fiction, including Mister Monkey; the New York Times bestseller Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932; A Changed Man, which won the Dayton Literary Peace Prize; and Blue Angel, a finalist for the National Book Award. Her works of nonfiction include Anne Frank: The Book, The Life, The Afterlife, and the New York Times bestseller Reading Like a Writer. The recipient of numerous grants and honors, including a Guggenheim, a Fulbright, and a Director’s Fellow at the Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library, she is a former president of PEN American Center and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She lives in New York City.Mamie Gummer made her New York stage debut in 2005 in Noah Haidle’s Mr. Marmalade. More recently, she starred in Theresa Rebeck’s The Water’s Edge, for which she has received a Lucille Lortel nomination for Outstanding Featured Actress. Her film work includes The Hoax, Evening, Stop Loss, and the HBO miniseries John Adams. From AudioFile This first-person novel begins with 13-year-old Nico admiring her sister Margaret’s rich, throaty singing. Narrator Mamie Gummer gives Nico a strong, rough-edged voice, conveying a depth and promise equal to the gifts she praises. Gummer’s unhurried reading depicts a leisurely summer day before sister Margaret leaves for college. The girls float in a boat, Nico sleeps, and the listener is lulled. Then Gummer shifts speeds, dramatizing Margaret’s sudden drowning and life’s instantaneous changes. The rest of Gummer’s narration is filled with pauses–as if Nico is trying to find a break from grief and to consider more carefully the potential pain in her relationship with her sister’s artistic boyfriend. Gummer’s pauses also give listeners time to appreciate the wry humor that saves the story from becoming maudlin. S.W. © AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine