Some Things That Stay - Hardcover

Willis, Sarah

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0374105804 ISBN 13: 9780374105808

Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux, 2000

Synopsis

Fifteen-year-old Tamara Anderson, whose peripatetic family has finally settled in rural Sherman, New York, in the 1950s, tries to cope with her mother's illness, her father's feckless artistic nature, and her burgeoning love for her new home

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Reviews

The deceptively quiet voice that inhabits this intelligent and moving first novel belongs to Tamara Anderson, 15 years old in 1954, who comes of age within an unconventional family that's struggling in an era of social conformity. Her father is a landscape painter, so the family (including Tamara's younger siblings, Robert, 11, and Megan, seven) moves every year, living in furnished houses from Georgia to Idaho to Maine, owning only what can fit in a trailer. Stuart and Liz, Tamara's parents, met when Liz modeled nude for art classes, with Stuart defying his family to marry the woman who had flirted with the Communist Party. Now they are determined to bring up their children as atheists, teaching them evolution and carefully explaining sexuality and reproduction. The '50s era, with its shadow of Moral Rearmament, is vividly evoked with references to Davy Crockett hats, the generalized fear of a Communist conspiracy and the atom bomb, as Tamara's perceptions of her new home in upstate rural New York drive the narrative. She explores her new school, and religion and sexuality with the boy across the street, juxtaposing her need for stability against her family's transient life. When Liz becomes seriously ill with tuberculosis, the Anderson family is weighted with fear, sadness and uncertainty of a kind entirely new to them. Willis deftly balances her depiction of the domestic unit: vulnerable Tamara correctly believes no one is listening to her, and knows that in Stuart's life, art ranks above his children. Liz and Stuart are devoted to each other, and are alternately selfish and caring parents; their idiosyncrasies, such as overrationalized reckless styles of driving the family car, suggest larger problems. Not a seamless tale, the narrative is hampered by a few stale patches of exposition, but overall, Tamara's uncommonly lucid, honest and expansive view marks this as a luminous, impressive debut. (Feb.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

It's 1954, and 15-year-old Tamara Anderson is searching for a place to call home. Her father, a landscape artist who is always looking for new challenges, moves his family to a new state each year. When they get to rural New York, however, the family starts to unravel. Tamara's mother, a strong woman who preaches atheism to her three children, comes down with tuberculosis and is sent to a sanatorium. Meanwhile, the children are drawn to the tattered family across the road. Rusty teaches Tamara about sex, and his church-going older sister Helen fascinates Tamara's younger siblings. Willis's writing is clear and fresh, capturing the emotional edge of childhood and the search for home in one's heart. A bit like a Northern Kaye Gibbons, Willis tells a coming-of-age story that is tender and moving. A first novel worth reading; recommended for public libraries.
-Beth Gibbs, P.L. of Charlotte & Mecklenburg Cty., NC
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0374105804
• ISBN 13: 9780374105808
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 275