Synopsis
In a small town by the riverside in the sixties, eleven-year-old Helen is diagnosed with lupus soon after her father dies under mysterious circumstances, casting a shadow over her new friendship with Augusta, the town doctor's daughter.
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Reviews
In her engaging second novel, Erhart ( Unusual Company ) traces the coming-of-age of two 11-year-old girls who live on opposite sides of the river that bisects their hometown. On her side, Augusta inhabits a conventional home with her parents, the town doctor and his wife. On the poorer side, Helen lives with her mother; her father is dead, her brother in a sanatorium. Narrator Augusta, hovering at the brink of adolescence, becomes infatuated with classmate Helen as well as with Helen's mother. As the novel opens, Helen falls ill with lupus, and the disease's drama and mystery as it attacks and retreats, its distressing effects on Helen and Augusta, form the story's nucleus. The novel follows the two girls, so closely bonded they practically dream each other's dreams, through a year, focusing on their time in class, their long walks home from school, Augusta's visits to Helen's sickbed and the eventual unraveling of Helen's family secrets. Erhart movingly portrays her protagonists contending with more of life than they can grasp, capturing Augusta and Helen at that most disturbing time, the difficult transit out of childhood.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
The breathy, tentative love story of a pair of 11-year-old girls forms the basis of this meandering tale--a younger version of Erhart's Unusual Company (1987) and just as murky. With her doctor father and housewife mother, Augusta Cotton lives on the ``right'' side of the river that bisects her small hometown. Helen Walsh lives on the wrong side, near the factory, with Harry, her mentally handicapped brother; Jordan, their spooky widowed mother; and Joan, a perky female taxi-driver who supports and encourages them all. An upbeat attitude becomes more difficult as Helen develops a case of lupus and Jordan starts wandering around town nights tussling with the spirit of her late husband. Nevertheless, Augusta falls in love with Helen and Jordan both, choosing the Walshes as sole refuge from unhelpful parents and her own increasingly distant, puzzling self. While lupus turns Helen's skin yellow, white, and yellow again, Augusta pries into the Walshes' dreary and depressing, if unconventional, history--an effort that leads to much aimless soul-searching by all concerned while climbing the local hills, picnicking on an abandoned airfield, and exploring the banks of the river. In the end, the Walshes finally reveal their secret trauma, but even the resolution of the mystery--the story of Helen's father's death and her brother's survival--hardly compensates for so much tedious chatter. An earnest, somber treatment that generally fails to entertain. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
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Search results for Augusta Cotton
Seller Image
Augusta Cotton
Published by
Zoland Books, 1992
ISBN 10: 0944072216
ISBN 13: 9780944072219
Used
Hardcover
First Edition
Seller: Kayleighbug Books, IOBA, Cedar Grove, WV, U.S.A.
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
Hardcover. Condition: Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Good. First Edition. No Stock Photos! We photograph every item. 289 pp.ex-library with usual markings, some dmg to pastedowns; light edge wear to boards and jacket; "What was lost would be lost again every time we invented it, until the pearls of our lives were hidden under so many layers of story, that only through great effort and great love would we ever be able to bring them back." Told through the voice of Augusta Cotton as she recollects her childhood, this imaginative novel captures the magical and turbulent times of two eleven-year-old girls searching for meaning in the quiet confusion that surrounds them. It is the end of 1963. Augusta's new friend, Helen Walsh, has mysterious and prolonged absences from school, and soon she is diagnosed with lupus. Augusta's father, the respected town doctor, has many answers, but he cannot make Helen well. Jordan, Helen's mother, is still shocked by the circumstances surrounding her husband's untimely death, circumstances in which Helen is somehow involved. The young girls spend more and more time together reading and telling the stories of their families. They grow closer as Augusta cares for her new best friend. In between shared laughter and the silence of Helen's pain, they find themselves entering a complex adult world. Eventually Augusta learns what happened to her friend's family, which includes a brain-damaged older brother, and her mother's friend Joan, a taxi driver. With intelligence and sensitivity, Margaret Erhart introduces us to resilient characters in a story that is full of the perplexities, mysteries, and visions of childhood. She brings us a story of the living and the dead, of wellness and illness, and of a world haunted by memory. Seller Inventory # 006699
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Augusta Cotton
Published by
Zoland Books, 1992
ISBN 10: 0944072216
ISBN 13: 9780944072219
Used
Hardcover
First Edition
Seller: Avenue Victor Hugo Books, Newmarket, NH, U.S.A.
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
Hardcover--cloth. Condition: Fine / Near Fine. First Edition. Signed by the author on title page and inscribed to a fellow author. Octavo, 8 3/4" tall, 289 pages, purple cloth with gilt title on spine. A near fine, clean hard cover first edition with slight shelf wear; hinges and binding tight, paper cream white. In a near fine, lightly worn dust jacket with some color fading at the back strip, with the original price. Seller Inventory # 41295
Seller Image
Augusta Cotton
Published by
Zoland Books, Cambridge, 1992
ISBN 10: 0944072216
ISBN 13: 9780944072219
Used
Hardcover
First Edition
Signed
Seller: Bungalow Books, ABAA, Pueblo, CO, U.S.A.
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. First Edition; First Printing. Signed by Erhart on the title page. Rubbing to the boards. In her second novel, Erhart traces the coming-of-age of two 11-year-old girls who live on opposite sides of the river that bisects their hometown. ; 289 pages; Signed by Author. Seller Inventory # 19881
Stock Image
Augusta Cotton
Seller: Robinson Street Books, IOBA, Binghamton, NY, U.S.A.
Seller rating 4 out of 5 stars
Hardcover. Condition: As New. Prompt Shipment, shipped in Boxes, Tracking PROVIDEDNear fine in near fine dust jacket. First edition. Seller Inventory # bing48729