Bright Angel Time - Softcover

McPhee, Martha

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0156029340 ISBN 13: 9780156029346

Publisher: Mariner Books, 2003

Synopsis

Set in the early 1970s, this magical first novel by National Book Award finalist Martha McPhee marked not only the introduction of the Furey-Cooper family of Gorgeous Lies, but also the auspicious debut of a stunning literary talent.
Meet eight-year-old Kate and her sisters as they take to a life on the road when their divorced mother falls in love with someone new. This strange freedom introduces the girls to a way of life that is vastly different from the one they knew with their geologist father. But, far from him, adult distraction and carelessness finally threaten to explode and ruin Kate's life. Rich in character, imagery, and humor, Bright Angel Time is a brilliant and moving novel from an authentic, critically acclaimed new voice.

About this title

Review:

"Mom learned to fall backward into the arms of strangers without hesitating or looking over her shoulder. She learned to fall freely, with her muscles relaxed and her mind open..." So begins Martha McPhee's first novel, Bright Angel Time, a story rooted in the freewheeling, free-falling decade of the 1970s. For Kate, the tale's narrator, life starts to crumble the day of the first moon landing. That is when her father takes off with his lover and leaves his family high and dry. Soon after, Kate's mother, Eve, falls in love with Anton, a man with a smarmy charisma that draws one in even as it invites second thoughts. A hippie pied piper, Anton lures Eve and her three daughters into a cross-country odyssey from New Jersey to a commune in Big Sur. There his own children from a previous marriage join the menagerie.

McPhee captures the era when women's liberation mixed with notions of free love led to sexual license, and Gestalt therapy promised enlightenment. Seen through the eyes of Kate and her two sisters, this is not so much a time of freedom as one of confusion, adult carelessness, and neglect. Kate's steely-eyed view of her parents' world, combined with McPhee's brilliant imagery and deft characterization, makes this '70s-era tale a book for the '90s.

Book Description:

Published in hardcover by Random House, June 1997, 0679450084
Published in hardcover by Random House Value Publishing, June 1999, 0517454556
Published in paperback by Harcourt, February 1999, 0156005867

About this edition

• Publisher: Mariner Books
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0156029340
• ISBN 13: 9780156029346
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256