Label

Child of my heart

Statement of responsibility

Alice McDermott

Creator

trueMcDermott, Alice

Author

trueMcDermott, Alice

Subject

Genre

Language

eng

Summary

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

Storyline

trueCharacter-driven

Tone

Writing style

trueLyrical

Award

Booklist Editors' Choice, 2002.
New York Times Notable Book, 2002.

Review

One of McDermott’s many gifts is her ability to portray adults, the poor clowns, as seen through a child’s or teenager’s clear-sky eyes, an illuminating and unsettling feat she performs with tender wit and quiet soulfulness in her exquisite fifth novel, the first since her National Book Award-winning Charming Billy (1998). McDermott has established early 1960s Long Island as a redolent fictional universe, “the kingdom by the sea” where ambitious working-class Irish Catholic escapees from Brooklyn keep an assessing watch over the island’s elite. Fifteen-year-old Theresa’s parents moved there to increase the odds that their exceptional daughter will attract a well-off husband. Meanwhile, this princess-in-waiting, who is every bit as shrewd as she is lovely, keeps herself busy during this eventful summer, her season of passage from girl to woman, by caring for her self-centered neighbors’ woefully neglected pets and children. Her sweet little city cousin, Daisy, a poetically minded stoic with unruly red hair and one of fiction’s most captivating girl spirits, is visiting, and the two share a magical world in which lollipops grow on trees and pretty plastic shoes have cosmic powers. But Theresa soon realizes that Daisy is ill, and the cousins’ intuitive complicity in concealing her condition infuses this magical novel with a profound poignancy. Resilient toddler Flora is Theresa’s primary babysitting responsibility, and of all the men who circle Theresa, aroused by and wary of her dawning sexuality and self-possession, Flora’s father, a famous abstract painter and still a hard-drinking womanizer at age 70, is the one this resourceful and pragmatic young woman is drawn to. Just as the calm and sparkling sea can conceal a tricky undertow, McDermott’s gorgeous novel is laced with sly literary allusions and provocative insights into the enigma of sexual desire, the mutability of art, death’s haunting presence, our need for fantasies, and the endless struggle to keep love pure. (Reviewed September 15, 2002) -- Donna Seaman
Adult/High School –Theresa, 15, is poised to be a heartbreaker, but she is also the ultimate caregiver. In early childhood, she left Brooklyn with her blue-collar parents for the fashionable Hamptons on Long Island, and her obvious beauty was to be her ticket to a prosperous marriage and easy life. Seemingly oblivious to her potential, Theresa moves serenely through the summer, gathering small animals and children in need of love and comfort. Prime among them is her cousin Daisy, eight, the middle child in a large, mostly male Irish family from Queens, who is so compliant that she seems lost among her siblings. Theresa invites this child of her heart for what is to be a luxurious and indulgent summer by the sea but, immediately upon her arrival, realizes that Daisy is not well. While short on plot, this deceptively simple story about a few days in the early '60s carries an emotional impact that lingers after the novel is finished. Theresa's intuitively kind treatment of her charges is a model of nurturance, and her brief liaison with an elderly painter is a jarring indication of the unplanned path her life might take. The teen's character is fully formed, her cluelessparents are likable, and the other inhabitants of the resort are well portrayed, too; the whole is a perfect jewel of exposition. Readers will respond to Theresa and be awed by her understanding of the adults around her.–Susan H. Woodcock, Fairfax County Public Library, Chantilly, VA --Susan H. Woodcock (Reviewed February 1, 2003) (School Library Journal, vol 49, issue 2, p172)
There is something almost too good to be true about Theresa, the introspective and unusually perceptive narrator who recalls the summer of her 15th year in this engaging, taut novel by McDermott (Charming Billy ). Theresa's Irish-American "well-read but undereducated" parents have little money but plenty of foresight; when they see that their only daughter will be beautiful, they move to East Hampton, Long Island, summer playground of New York City's richest, in the hopes that Theresa's beauty will eventually win her a wealthy husband. Because she has a way with children and animals, her parents have long encouraged her to baby-sit and pet-sit as a way to meet and impress the right people. This particular summer, her favorite cousin, eight-year-old Daisy, tags along as Theresa cares for dogs, cats, neighbor kids and a toddler named Flora, the only child of a 70-year-old womanizing artist and his fourth trophy wife. Entirely self-involved, the artist does manage to look away from his canvas and mistress long enough to notice Theresa, who finds his attentions exciting. Early on, Theresa discovers a tragic secret of Daisy's that she decides to keep to herself, which gives the summer—and the book—a wistful, melancholy air. As the girls corral their charges, Theresa offers half-innocent, half-ironic comments on the vanities and topsy-turvy family lives of her employers. This is another charmer from McDermott; it's evocative, gently funny and resonant with a sense of impending loss, as all stories of youthful summers must be. There's a whisper of maudlin sentimentality throughout, but Theresa is so likable, and her observations so acute, that one easily forgives it. (Nov. 25) Forecast: A tartly luscious lollipop-studded jacket makes this an enticing option for readers craving a taste of summer. McDermott fans will be thoroughly satisfied. --Staff (Reviewed October 7, 2002) (Publishers Weekly, vol 249, issue 40, p50)
Unfolding like the waves that roll onto the shore of the East End's beaches, this story about 15-year-old Theresa, the only child of understanding if somewhat absent parents, is threaded with foreboding. Theresa, who lives year 'round in East Hampton, narrates a summer she spends with younger cousin Daisy, who is visiting. Poised and mature, Theresa longs to comfort and care for children—to be surrounded by others so as not to be alone. Her days are spent working as a pet and babysitter for various residents, part-time or otherwise. Mostly, she watches the two-year-old daughter of a famous, 70-year-old painter, with Daisy of course in tow. The narrative soon takes on an ominous feel as mysterious bruises start to appear on Daisy's legs and passionate glances from the painter linger on Theresa a little too long. National Book Award winner McDermott's prose is even and elegant, and the complex character of Theresa offers subtle emotion imbued with haunting prescience. Though some of the details about being a local in the Hamptons are slightly off the mark, McDermott's true-to-life evocation of the lazy, sun-soaked summers in such a heaven (albeit a troubled heaven) outweighs this deficit. A nice addition to any literary collection. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 8/02.]—Rachel Collins, "Library Journal" --Rachel Collins (Reviewed November 15, 2002) (Library Journal, vol 127, issue 19, p101)
After the National Book Award–winning Charming Billy (1998), McDermott returns to the familiar turf of her earlier fiction: East Hampton and the inner life of a precocious girl one crucial summer.Theresa lives a quietly secure life as the only child of doting, middle-aged Irish Catholic parents with upwardly mobile aspirations. By the summer she is 15, Theresa—the name's saintly resonance may strike readers as a bit obvious—is not only lovely but wise and kind as well, adored by the young children and animals she cares for. In contrast, her eight-year-old cousin, "Poor Daisy," is mousy, pale, and generally overlooked among a cramped houseful of siblings in Queens Village. Sorry for Daisy and also sensing a special kinship of imagination, Theresa invites the younger girl to East Hampton for the summer. Daisy arrives with pink plastic sandals she won't take off. When Theresa stumbles across the reason—bruises on Daisy's feet and body she can't explain—a sense of foreboding falls like a shadow of death across the summer. But the foreboding is sexual as well. Theresa and Daisy spend most of their days babysitting the two-year-old daughter of a famous artist. When his much younger wife decamps one morning after letting Theresa know she may be the painter's next conquest, Theresa finds herself both repulsed and attracted. Day by day, as Daisy's health deteriorates, Theresa's sexuality ripens. Meanwhile, the ever-observant Theresa is silent witness to the tragedies rippling under her community's placid surface: neglected children desperate for affection; a divorced father whose longing for his children almost perverts him; the "tweedy" dowager whose overbearing cheerfulness masks maternal grief. Though hobbled by a tendency toward sentimentality and self-consciousness, McDermott sculpts her small story with a meticulous eye for the telling detail and transcendent metaphor.We know what's coming, but so do the characters—that's part of this tale's bittersweet power. (Kirkus Reviews, September 15, 2002)

Cataloging source

DLC

Dewey number

813/.54

Index

no index present

LC call number

PS3563.C355

LC item number

C49 2002

Literary form

fiction

Target audience

adult

Context

Work of