Child of My HeartChild of My Heart
Title rated 3.75 out of 5 stars, based on 31 ratings(31 ratings)
Book, 2002
Current format, Book, 2002, 1st ed, Available .Book, 2002
Current format, Book, 2002, 1st ed, Available . Offered in 0 more formatsA teenage girl, raised on the east end of Long Island among the country estates of the rich, reflects on her understanding of human nature during a seemingly idyllic summer spent with her eight-year-old cousin Daisy.
A teenage girl, raised on the east end of Long Island among the country estates of the rich, reflects on her understanding of the complexities and contradictions of human nature during a seemingly idyllic summer spent with her eight-year-old cousin Daisy. By the author of the National Book Award-winning Charming Billy. 150,000 first printing.
The beautiful child of older parents, raised on the eastern end of Long Island among the summer houses of the rich, Theresa is the town's most sought-after babysitter - cheerful, poised, an effortless storyteller, a wonder with children and animals - but also a solitary soul already attuned to the paradoxes and compromises of adult life. Among her charges this fateful summer is Daisy, her younger cousin, who has left a crowded working-class household in the city to spend a few quiet weeks in this bucolic place, under Theresa's benevolent eye.
While Theresa copes with the challenge presented by the neighborhood's waiflike children, the tumultuous households of her employers, the mysteriously compelling attentions of an aging painter, and Daisy's fragility of body and spirit, her precocious, tongue-in-cheek sense of order is put to the test as she makes the perilous crossing into adulthood.
A young girl's astonishing, poignant first look into the turbulent heart of things
"I had in my care that summer four dogs, three cats, the Moran kids, Daisy, my eight-year-old cousin, and Flora, the toddler child of a local artist. There was also, for a while, a litter of wild rabbits, three of them, that had been left under our back steps.... "
Alice McDermott's haunting and enchanting new work of fiction--her first since the bestselling Charming Billy, winner of the 1998 National Book Award--is narrated by a woman who was born beautiful. Her parents decided that her best chance in life was to marry a wealthy man, so she was raised on the east end of Long Island, among the country houses of the rich. On the cusp of fifteen, she is the town's most sought-after babysitter--cheerful, beloved, a wonder with children and animals, but also a solitary soul with an already complex understanding of human nature--when her favorite cousin, Daisy, comes to spend the summer.
The narrator's witty, piquant, deeply etched evocation of all that was really transpiring under the surface during that seemingly idyllic season gives her wry tale--infused with suppressed passion, disappointment, and enduring hope--its remarkable vividness and impact. Once again, Alice McDermott explores the mysterious depths of what seems like everyday life with unforgettable insight and resonant emotional power.
A teenage girl, raised on the east end of Long Island among the country estates of the rich, reflects on her understanding of the complexities and contradictions of human nature during a seemingly idyllic summer spent with her eight-year-old cousin Daisy. By the author of the National Book Award-winning Charming Billy. 150,000 first printing.
The beautiful child of older parents, raised on the eastern end of Long Island among the summer houses of the rich, Theresa is the town's most sought-after babysitter - cheerful, poised, an effortless storyteller, a wonder with children and animals - but also a solitary soul already attuned to the paradoxes and compromises of adult life. Among her charges this fateful summer is Daisy, her younger cousin, who has left a crowded working-class household in the city to spend a few quiet weeks in this bucolic place, under Theresa's benevolent eye.
While Theresa copes with the challenge presented by the neighborhood's waiflike children, the tumultuous households of her employers, the mysteriously compelling attentions of an aging painter, and Daisy's fragility of body and spirit, her precocious, tongue-in-cheek sense of order is put to the test as she makes the perilous crossing into adulthood.
A young girl's astonishing, poignant first look into the turbulent heart of things
"I had in my care that summer four dogs, three cats, the Moran kids, Daisy, my eight-year-old cousin, and Flora, the toddler child of a local artist. There was also, for a while, a litter of wild rabbits, three of them, that had been left under our back steps.... "
Alice McDermott's haunting and enchanting new work of fiction--her first since the bestselling Charming Billy, winner of the 1998 National Book Award--is narrated by a woman who was born beautiful. Her parents decided that her best chance in life was to marry a wealthy man, so she was raised on the east end of Long Island, among the country houses of the rich. On the cusp of fifteen, she is the town's most sought-after babysitter--cheerful, beloved, a wonder with children and animals, but also a solitary soul with an already complex understanding of human nature--when her favorite cousin, Daisy, comes to spend the summer.
The narrator's witty, piquant, deeply etched evocation of all that was really transpiring under the surface during that seemingly idyllic season gives her wry tale--infused with suppressed passion, disappointment, and enduring hope--its remarkable vividness and impact. Once again, Alice McDermott explores the mysterious depths of what seems like everyday life with unforgettable insight and resonant emotional power.
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- New York : Farrar Straus Giroux, 2002.
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