Saturday, June 13, 2009

Vanishing Acts


This is a brilliant book by Jodi Picoult. I'd never read any of her books before, and this one was very moving. A woman finds out her father took her away from her mother when she was four, saying the mother had died. She never questioned it, except now he's been found out, and goes to jail. The story is written from four different viewpoints, the father, the woman, her husband and her best friend. The jail scenes are chilling. The writing is beautiful. I have to share an excerpt:
"Let me tell you what happens when you cook down the syrup of loss over the open fire of sorrow. It solidifies into something else. Not grief, like you'd expect or even regret. No, it gets thick as paste, black as ash, yet it isn't until you dip a finger in and feel that sharp taste dissolving on your tongue that you realise that is anger in its purest form, unrefined; a substance to be weighed and measured and spread."

My rating:
*****

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