Crooked Little Heart: A Novel - Softcover

Lamott, Anne

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0385491808 ISBN 13: 9780385491808

Publisher: Anchor, 1998

Synopsis

With the same winning combination of humor and honesty that marked her recent nonfiction bestsellers, Operating Instructions and Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott's new novel gives us an exuberant, richly absorbing portrait of a family for whom the joys and sorrows of everyday life are magnified under the glare of the unexpected.

Rosie Ferguson, in the first bloom of young womanhood, is obsessed with tournament tennis. Her mother is a recovering alcoholic still grieving the death of her first husband; her stepfather, a struggling writer, is wrestling with his own demons. And now Rosie finds that her athletic gifts, once a source of triumph and escape, place her in peril, as a shadowy man who stalks her from the bleachers seems to be developing an obsession of his own...

About this title

Review:

At 13, Rosie plays a gangly, pigeon-toed second fiddle to her juicy, sexy friend Simone. The two are junior tennis champs who often cart home trophies. But driven by the gnawing fear that she's a loser, Rosie starts to cheat. Meantime, boy-crazy Simone dabbles in off-court disaster. Up in the bleachers a weird loner named Luther obsessively follows Rosie's games, while at home her mother wrestles her own demons. Anne Lamott (Operating Instructions) has turned in a fair depiction of the blood and bones of adolescence that's thankfully leavened by sharp humor and transcendent moments. The novel is uneven and heavy-handed at times, but often rewarding.

From the Publisher:

Here's a sample of the advance praise that poured into Pantheon's offices recently:

"Crooked Little Heart is pure Anne Lamott, with her marvelous, unique and totally original voice, so warm and welcoming, kind, and always so wonderfully, reliably, funny."
-- Alice Adams

"With Crooked Little Heart, Anne Lamott deserves to be called the Subconscious of America. She's the two-way mirror of our hopes, insecurities, and cheating hearts. She's the astute observer of human nature. She knows that what we don't know can hurt us. In true Lamott fashion, life doesn't stay neatly within boundaries, the best team doesn't always win, and only the voyeur knows who you really are. Fathers die, mothers drink, and an infected pimple can kill you or at least ruin your chances in junior high school. But there's also this: love, redemption, and the certainty that life goes on. Crooked Little Heart is absolutely brilliant."
-- Amy Tan

"Anne Lamott is at the top of her form in this complex coming-of-age novel in which tennis becomes the metaphor for life's toughest lessons."
-- Sue Grafton

About this edition

• Publisher: Anchor
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0385491808
• ISBN 13: 9780385491808
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 326