Plum & Jaggers (Nancy Pearl’s Book Lust Rediscoveries) - Softcover

Shreve, Susan Richards

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1477819452 ISBN 13: 9781477819456

Publisher: AmazonEncore, 2013

Synopsis

For the McWilliams children, life is forever altered the day a terrorist bomb blast rips through the train carrying them across Italy, instantly killing their parents. Dazed and frightened, Charlotte, Oliver, and baby Julia cling to oldest brother Sam, who—only seven at the time—is haunted by every detail.

After he and his siblings are taken in by their kindly but peculiar grandparents, Sam becomes consumed with protecting them at all costs. His compulsive behavior—which includes shoplifting materials to make a bomb shelter for the quartet—leads to his placement in “the Cage,” a juvenile detention center on the outskirts of Washington, DC. It is there that Sam, inspired by letters exchanged between his deceased parents, dreams up Plum & Jaggers, a darkly bizarre comedy troupe. Made up of him and his brother and sisters, the group pokes fun at life’s tragedies and will eventually carry them into adulthood. But even once grown, Sam McWilliams finds he cannot always stop things from blowing apart.

About this title

About the Author

Susan Richards Shreve is the author of several novels, including A Student of Living Things and You Are the Love of My Life, as well as the memoir Warm Springs: Traces of a Childhood at FDR’s Polio Haven. She has also written dozens of children’s books, including The Lovely Shoes, and is the co-editor or editor of five anthologies. Shreve founded the MFA degree at George Mason University, where she is a professor of English and present co-chairman of the PEN/Faulkner Foundation. She has also taught at Columbia School of the Arts and Princeton University for the MFA programs. Among her numerous accolades are the Guggenheim Award for Fiction, the Grub Street Prize in Non-Fiction, and the Service Award from Poets & Writers. She lives and writes in Washington, DC.

Nancy Pearl is a librarian and lifelong reader. She regularly comments on books on National Public Radio’s Morning Edition. Her books include 2003’s Book Lust: Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment and Reason, 2005’s More Book Lust: 1,000 New Reading Recommendations for Every Mood, Moment and Reason; Book Crush: For Kids and Teens: Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment, and Interest, published in 2007, and 2010’s Book Lust To Go: Recommended Reading for Travelers, Vagabonds, and Dreamers. Among her many awards and honors are the 2011 Librarian of the Year Award from Library Journal; the 2011 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association; the 2010 Margaret E. Monroe Award from the Reference and Users Services Association of the American Library Association; and the 2004 Women's National Book Association Award, given to "a living American woman who...has done meritorious work in the world of books beyond the duties or responsibilities of her profession or occupation."

From Publishers Weekly

Four young children are orphaned in 1974, when a terrorist bomb explodes on the Milan-Rome express train, in this touching novel about how families cope with violence and loss. The explosion occurs just after the elder McWilliamses leave their kids briefly to get lunch in the cafe car, which is the part of the train that's blown to bits. Dazed and frightened, Charlotte, Oliver and infant Julia cling to Sam, who, at age seven, is the oldest of the siblings. An Italian family cares for them until they're picked up by their kind but conservative grandfather, who--with their agoraphobic grandmother--raises them in Grand Rapids, Mich. Though they love their new charges, the grandparents are distraught by the children's compulsive, secretive behavior, especially that of Sam, who, obsessed by his perceived responsibility to protect his family, becomes a loner with a bad reputation. After Sam is mistakenly blamed for the beating of a younger, handicapped boy, the family moves to Washington, D.C., where Sam shoplifts items to build a bomb shelter and is placed in a juvenile detention center. There, he conceives the idea for Plum & Jaggers, a comedy troupe eventually composed of his brother and sisters, whose bizarre scenarios transform with dark humor the tragedies of random violence and the ironies of modern life. An accomplished author of adult (The Visiting Physician) and children's (The Formerly Great Alexander Family) fiction, Shreve reveals the orphans' creativity and self-destructiveness with balanced honesty, evoking her familiar themes of distrust and haunting memories. Best at sketches detailing individual quirks of the McWilliamses as they grow up, Shreve focuses more intensely throughout on the most disturbed, unstable and unusual character of Sam and leaves the other three siblings a bit sketchier. But through Sam's dark ebullience, Shreve traces the complexity of the family, including the spirits of the dead parents, offering a compassionate portrait of a courageous, troubled and resilient foursome. Author tour. (June)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: AmazonEncore
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 1477819452
• ISBN 13: 9781477819456
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 227