Review & Book Tour: Goldengrove

October 7, 2009 Ti 18 Comments

Goldengrove
By Francine Prose
Pub. Date: September 2009
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Format: Paperback, 275pp
ISBN-13: 9780060560027
ISBN: 0060560029

The blurb from the publisher:

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.

The Short of It:

An unsettling look at what happens to a family when a loved one is suddenly no more.

The Rest of It:

I’ve often wondered about death. Death that results from illness is quite different than a death that results from an accident or a sudden heart attack. In this novel, Margaret dies suddenly. Her family has no time to prepare themselves for the loss and for Nico, Margaret’s younger sister, it’s as if Margaret is there one minute and gone the next. How does a family deal with such a loss?

As Nico struggles with her grief, she realizes that Aaron, Margaret’s boyfriend is really the only person that understands what she is going through. They form an unlikely friendship which at times seems inappropriate but seeing what these two have been through, and what Margaret meant to them, all I saw were two people in a lot of pain trying desperately to overcome their grief.

Francine Prose does a remarkable job of describing what Nico is feeling and although Margaret was not on the page for long, you definitely get a feel for her personality as these characters look back on their moments with her. Many have said that Nico seems older than her thirteen years. This may be true, but to me she came across as an ‘old soul’ which made her relationship with Aaron a bit easier for me to understand.

As Prose takes us through the novel, Nico sees signs that Margaret is still with her. I’ve always been fascinated by signs. They function as a form of comfort and generally exist to help us through a crisis. Prose does a wonderful job of providing comfort to Nico in the way of signs and whether or not you believe they exist in real life doesn’t really matter, because they exist realistically within the novel.

I had one small quibble with Aaron. At the beginning of the novel, a comment is made which might lead the reader to think that all is not right with Aaron. As I was reading, I kept waiting for that secret to be revealed but in my opinion nothing was revealed. I felt that his actions were motivated by his loss so perhaps I missed something there.

This novel was a very quick read. Once I started it, I could not put it down. The prose was easy to follow and I cared about the characters and what they were going through. This was my first experience with Prose’s writing style but it definitely won’t be my last.