The Glass House People - Softcover

Reiss, Kathryn

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0152012931 ISBN 13: 9780152012939

Publisher: HMH Books for Young Readers, 1996

Synopsis

Beth’s mother, Hanny Lynn, hasn’t spoken to her parents or her sister, Iris, in twenty years. But she decides it’s time to set aside old grievances, so sixteen-year-old Beth and her brother, Tom, find themselves spending a sweltering summer with their mother and her family in a sleepy Pennsylvania town. More than just homesick, Beth is troubled by deep family tensions and Aunt Iris’s sudden drunken outbursts. As Beth begins to delve into family history, she discovers a chilling and inexplicable tragedy.

About this title

About the Author:

KATHRYN REISS is the author of Time Windows, an ALA Best Book for Young Adults; The Glass House People; Dreadful Sorry; Pale Phoenix, a finalist for the Edgar Award; as well as PaperQuake: A Puzzle. A master of the time-travel mystery genre, “Reiss slips between past and present with a callous alacrity that is wondrously effective” (Kirkus Reviews). She lives with her family in Northern California. www.midgard.com/KReiss/KReissInfo.html

From Kirkus Reviews:

Reiss's first novel, Time Windows (1991), was a well-wrought time fantasy involving a mother thwarted of self-realization, a pattern later revisited on occupants of the same house. The theme here is similar: two sisters are still trapped by the acrimony generated by the death of the man they both loved 20 years ago. When Hanny arrives to summer in Philadelphia with her children--Tom, 15, and Beth, 16, an aspiring artist who provides the point of view--they find gentle old Grandad, who still favors his younger daughter; vitriolic Grandmother, who's sure that Hanny and her kids can do nothing right; and alcoholic Aunt Iris, who's been embittered ever since her fianc‚ Clifton died in a fall during a stair-top tussle after Iris found him in bed with her teenage sister. Each sister has always believed the other pushed Clifton; Tom and Beth are united in their search for the truth. Without Time Windows' fantasy element, this plot founders on its lack of motivation. The characters are too simplistic to be believable; an extraordinary change of heart from all three older women after Grandad's transparently untrue confession (unsurprisingly, nobody pushed Clifton) is only the last unlikely straw. Meanwhile, promising themes like the role of art in various lives, or Beth's parallel infatuation with an older man, just fizzle out. Disappointing, but acceptable as popular fiction. (Fiction. 12-16) -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: HMH Books for Young Readers
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0152012931
• ISBN 13: 9780152012939
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 352