The Disapparation of James - Softcover

Ursu, Anne

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0786886633 ISBN 13: 9780786886630

Publisher: Hachette Books, 2004

Synopsis

The Woodrow family is at the circus to celebrate Greta's seventh birthday. When a clown asks for a volunteer from the audience, the parents are shocked when James, their extremely shy five-year-old, raises his hand. James thrives in the spotlight, and as the clown leads him through the routine, the parents glow with pride as the audience cheers for their son. The cheers turn into thundering applause as the act culminates in spectacular fashion, with James vanishing before their very eyes. The trouble is that James really does vanish--poof--into thin air.

As the police and media descend on the Woodrows, they feel that the laws of the universe have shattered. How can you solve a puzzle with no logic? As young Greta sets out to discover what really happened to her brother, each family member grapples with the joys and perils of loving, the persistence of loss, and the magic of everyday life.

About this title

About the Author:

Anne Ursu is the author of Spilling Clarence. She has worked at a major book retailer, as the theater critic for City Pages (Minneapolis), and as an arts writer for the Portland Phoenix (Maine). She lives in Mountain View, California.

From Publishers Weekly:

Alternative realities and parallel plot lines coexist in Ursu's surreal but psychologically acute second novel (after Spilling Clarence), in which a boy chosen from a circus audience to disappear during a clown's magic act really does disappear. Hannah and Justin Woodrow bring their daughter, Greta, to the circus for her seventh birthday, along with her five-year-old brother, James. Greta is outgoing, quick-witted and full of energy, while James is so quiet his mother plans to bring him to a specialist for tests. Both parents thrill when James is selected from the audience and responds charmingly to the clown's every request. Then, suddenly, James is gone. The police assign someone to watch over the family, but the officer turns from friend to aggressor while Mike the Clown is transformed from suspect to victim. Hannah dissociates, Justin obsesses and Greta does research. The child is the only one who is able to confront the loss directly. Ursu mixes realistic depictions of police interrogations and domestic tensions with fantastic interludes like a chapter imagining the day after James's disappearance as it would have been if the disappearance had not occurred. She delicately probes the worry and longing, guilt and rage, protectiveness and resentment that characterize parental love. James's "disapparation" is even more a mystery at the end of the novel than at the beginning, but it doesn't seem to matter, since Ursu wins the reader over with her humane wisdom and charming vision of the limitless possibilities of a child's imagination. One only wishes that Greta-the novel's pivotal character-were not quite so cloying.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Hachette Books
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0786886633
• ISBN 13: 9780786886630
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288