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Synopsis
Calvin Becker is back in a timeless story about the volcanic sexual curiosity of a fourteen-year-old boy born into a fundamentalist family so strict that he has never seen a movie, watched television, or danced (and has to hide his five copies of Mad magazine in the attic). It is 1966, and Ralph and Elsa Becker, Reformed Presbyterian missionaries from Kansas, are stationed in Switzerland, and on a modest ski vacation with their three children: tyrannical eighteen-year-old Janet, angelic Rachael, and our narrator, the irrepressible Calvin, who puzzles over his sisters' bras, as they hang on a line hidden away "so that I could not get a good look unless I ducked under the sheets ... to the feminine heart of the laundry maze." But at the Hotel Riffelberg, high above Zermatt, Calvin falls into the hands of a waitress who, while bringing him his breakfast each morning, serially initiates him into ecstasies he can barely comprehend. The resulting family crisis triggers a larger crisis of faith in his fundamentalist father, leading to a climax, which rips Calvin out of his childhood. With echoes of Irving and Roth and its own uniquely human voice, Zermatt is a coming-of-age gem.
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About the Author
The son of missionary parents, Frank Scaeffer was born in 1952 and when young did live in Switzerland and holiday on the Italian Riviera. He now lives in New York and Massachusetts. Portofino was his first novel, Zermatt continues the story of Calvin Becker and his hilarious, holier-than-thou family. With his son John, he wrote the New York Times bestseller, Keeping Faith: A Father-Son Story about Love and the United States Marine Corps.
From AudioFile
Second in a proposed trilogy, ZERMATT recounts Calvin Becker's coming-of-age within his fundamentalist missionary family. Calvin's never danced, seen a movie or a television program, and his home schooling has left him deficient in reading. When the family takes a ski vacation at their accustomed low-budget hotel, far from the "sinners" in the village, they discover shocking changes--guests who smoke, drink alcohol, and enjoy music. In a painfully believable performance, Lloyd James suffers Calvin's adolescent misery as he finds himself trapped in a humorless evangelical dogma-spouting nightmare. James is utterly convincing as Calvin, consumed by curiosity about the opposite sex, becomes carnally enlightened by a Swiss waitress of 35. As the inevitable crisis of faith occurs, James's performance combines pathos with comedy, making the ingenuous, if not-so-innocent Calvin, a character to remember. S.J.H. © AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine
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- PublisherDa Capo Press
- Publication date2004
- ISBN 10 0786714603
- ISBN 13 9780786714605
- BindingPaperback
- Number of pages256
- Rating
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