Reviewed by Ashley Merrill
Based in modern times, this novel is about a woman named Anne and her struggles with her child, as well as internal struggles that she faces with herself. Anne has a six month old baby boy named Evan. Evan was born with severe clubbed feet. Anne feels as though her child is going to be ridiculed and will not be able to lead a good life if he isn’t the picture of perfection, so she and her husband both are doing everything they can to correct Evans deformity. They have a doctor that performs operations and castings on his feet to try and straighten them out.
Along with the stress of her baby, Anne goes to a support group for parents with babies who have clubbed feet, and she meets a man who, like her, has a child with club feet and feels they need to be corrected in order for his child to lead a normal life. The two of them have an attraction that leads Anne to become distracted at home and to question what she wants in life.
A third tailspin is Anne’s past. Her mother took her away from her home in Harmony when she was very young and has never explained to Anne why they left so suddenly and why they left her father and never tried to contact him. Anne has dreams and remembers bits and pieces of her father, but nothing more. Anne’s mother is not willing to talk about it and Anne feels as though she is hiding something. Since Evan has been born Anne has been pushing her mother more and more because she wants Evan to know who her grandfather is.
Joanna Goodman does an excellent job of paralleling these three events going on in Anne’s life. She intertwines them, lets them go for a while on her own, and ultimately she creates a dynamic ending. Her writing style is very to the point and modern, creating a novel that is impossibly to put down for longer than to get a quick bite to eat. Her characters are very real like, and you find yourself sympathizing or empathizing with them throughout the story because the events that transpire are very real, and could happen to any of us.
Joanna
Goodman also does an excellent job at portraying a married couple. Instead of making them seem like a perfect
couple because they have lots of money, and good jobs, she takes you
into what
it is really like in a marriage
behind closed doors: the fighting, the frustration, the stress, waking
up and
hating your spouse one day, and loving him the next, and finally, how
two
different people react when forced with choices about their child and
his
deformity. Both Anne and Elie have very
different ways of handling the stress and have different views on what
it will
mean to have a son with club feet. I
would highly recommend this book for any and all audiences. Simply put,
this
book is an excellent read!