Nearer Than the Sky - Hardcover

Greenwood, Tammy

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312265034 ISBN 13: 9780312265038

Publisher: St. Martin's Press, 2000

Synopsis

In those days, there were no words to describe the nature of my mother's tales. No diagnosis for her tendency toward fiction. No names for women who make accidents happen to their children. No terms for imaginary heroes. And so we listened to my mother's stories in silence and tried to believe.

Indie Brown is a woman haunted by a childhood she'd rather forget in T. Greenwood's luminous and terrifying second novel.

As an adult, Indie has moved far away from her parents, and created a new life with her long time companion, Peter, a sensitive and steadfast partner. Together they have forged a simple and happy life in the back woods of Maine. But one autumn evening, a late night phone call from her younger sister sends Indie reeling back into the chaos of her troubled family, and she reluctantly returns home.

It is there, back in the mountains of Arizona, that events from her past are suddenly and painfully illuminated. From her mother's disturbing relationship with her younger sister to the death of her brother, Indie is assaulted by the nightmares of her childhood. And after a sudden and unpredictable turn of events, she is ultimately forced to reevaluate her relationships with her mother, her sister, and with Peter.

Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy, the elusive and horrific mental disorder which causes afflicted mothers to make their own children ill, comes to life in this tragic yet beautiful story. With the same lyrical prose displayed in her award-winning debut novel, Breathing Water, Greenwood once again takes on brutal subject matter with sensitivity and grace.

About this title

About the Author:

T. Greenwood was born in Vermont. She is the author of Breathing Water and the 1999 recipient of the Sherwood Anderson Foundation Award. She lives in Ocean Beach, California with her husband, Patrick Stewart.

From Publishers Weekly:

A lyrical investigation into the unreliability and elusiveness of memory centers Greenwood's second novel (after Breathing Water), the intriguing tale of Miranda ("Indie") Brown's examination of her baffling and disconcerting childhood memories and of her coming to terms with a strange psychological disorder. Indie, at 33, is living a contented life in Echo Hollow, Maine, with Peter, her lover of 14 years, who owns a restaurant/art film house. Everything changes when she receives a telephone call from her youngerAand prettierAsister, Lily: their mother has been hospitalized, with the diagnosis of poison, possibly self-administered. Since Lily can't leave her gravely ill infant daughter, Violet, who lives in an oxygen tent, Indie takes Ma from the hospital back home to the Arizona mountains. As Indie starts to reflect on events from her past that continue to affect the present, she becomes aware of how varieties of the Munchausen syndrome (disorders that cause sufferers to induce illness in themselves and in others) have shaped her family's lives. What really happened when four-year-old Indie was struck by lightning, and why exactly did Indie's and Lily's older brother die? What caused Lily's many childhood illnesses, and what about baby Violet's? Lily was her mother's favorite, while Indie grew up attached to her father, in whose bar she learned to shoot pool and drink too much. She believes that her encounter with lightning gave her special abilities to "taste sounds" and to catch "at least a glimpse of the truth" that eludes others. As her personal history reveals itself, Indie may find herself no less haunted by the truth than by falsehood. Greenwood can be coy with mysterious hints, but the kaleidoscopic heart of the story is rich with evocative details about its heroine's inner life.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0312265034
• ISBN 13: 9780312265038
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288