Rowing in Eden

Sam is not the only tormented soul in the tiny upstate village of Old Wickham. There's also Peter Quinn, a brilliant, troubled fourteen-year-old with quick fists, no past, and a truckload of attitude. Although a judge found him innocent, Peter knows better. Some things, he figures, "it don't matter why you did 'em, only that you did 'em."
On its surface, Old Wickham, New York, is a Norman Rockwell montage of red-cheeked youngsters skating on ponds, dogs frolicking in the snow, and villagers huddled around wood-burning stoves. Yet someone in this idyllic community has been setting fires. Suspicions divide the village along the usual fault lines. Scapegoats are sought, outsiders shunned. The back room of the country store gives rise to a Greek chorus of collective rage. In this crucible of distrust, unlooked-for alliances are forged, old alliances are tested, and no one emerges unchanged.

Cancer-ravaged Louise Pollak dies wordlessly on the first page of Rogan's fifth book, her demise facilitated by her loving husband, Sam. She is nonetheless heard loud and clear to the last page of this romance-cum-morality tale. Her voice is kept alive by messengers to the Pollaks' farmhouse in the upstate New York town of Old Wickham. The first such messengers to arrive, moments after Lou's death, are gutsy urban transplant Jane Goncalves and Peter, her bristly but appealing 14-year-old foster son. Jane works at the local bookshop, and she has brought a book that Lou had ordered-Emily Dickinson's poems. There Sam finds what he believes to be Lou's parting message. "Rowing in Eden!/ Ah, the Sea!/ Might I but moor/ Tonight in thee!" We feel Sam's hopeless longing, but we know the messenger is also a message from Lou; inevitably, Sam will want to moor in Jane-and his wife would cheer him on. Just as surely, he will have to save a life to pay the karmic debt incurred by killing Lou, no matter that she'd made him promise to do so. Rogan (A Heartbeat Away) delivers action and subplot. Jane has two other foster kids besides Peter; and when arson strikes their home, it's a good bet the blaze is a reflection of how heartily they're unwelcome by the clannish villagers of Old Wickam. Unfortunately, Lou is the one character who really talks; the rest send telegrams. Among the blatant (and stereotyped) messengers: Malachi, the kvetchy mystical defrocked rabbi; Portia, the streetwise black social worker; and Moses the Mutt, who leads Sam to the Promised Land.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The fifth novel by Rogan (A Heartbeat Away, 1993, etc.) takes us down a familiar road and into a thicket of blighted lives whose fortunes hinge upon a timely touch from the finger of God. The opening line sets the pace: ``Even though she'd asked for it, Sam Pollak could not help feeling guilty the day he killed his wife.'' But it's not what you think. Sam's wife Louise has cancer, and he puts her out of her misery at her own request. All the same, Sam is haunted by what he's done, and his guilt compounds his grief to a degree that makes his own life seem unbearable and pointless. A cabinetmaker and carpenter, Sam tries to lose himself in his work, and this brings him into the orbit of Jane Goncalves, a Manhattan social worker who's bought an old house in Sam's upstate village to use as a home for her foster children. While he works on the house, however, some of the local yahoos start agitating to run the children out of town, blaming them for a string of arsons that began as soon as they arrived. Sam keeps out of the politics for a while, but once he takes on one of Jane's children as an assistant, he's quickly drawn into the conflict. His own obsession with Louise's death, moreover, is nourished by a string of anonymous telephone calls he begins to receive late at night from someone who declares, ``I know what you did.'' A defrocked rabbi, a Brooklyn homegirl, several troubled yet adorable street urchins, a horny postmistress, and a gay football player provide some silly digressions from Sam's story. By the end, though he's not been healed of his loss, it's evident that the worst is behind him. Mawkish and overblown: Despite some good characters and a smooth voice, the sentiments are obvious to the point of caricature. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

"Even though she'd asked for it, Sam Pollack could not help feeling guilty the day he killed his wife." From that opening line until the final page, prepare to be swept into the life of a small town peopled with memorable characters: Pollack, who lives with survivor's guilt and rage at his late wife and the circumstances of her death; outsider Jane Goncalves, who moved her family of foster children to the tiny village in the hopes of finding a home and acceptance; and a crazed arsonist on the loose. The villagers are suspicious of Peter, Jane's oldest foster child, because he is an unknown quantity. When the threads of Sam and Jane's lives entwine, friendship and the potential seeds for more are sown. But it is Peter who will need Sam's help the most to recapture the youth lost in his father's violent death, and Sam must face his own guilt in the process. Rogan has been compared to Alice Hoffman and is highly recommended for all collections. Melanie Duncan

The village of Old Wickham becomes less serene as conflicts develop among its diverse inhabitants: carpenter Sam Pollack, who killed his cancer-ravaged wife; feisty Jane Goncalves, who is raising several foster children; Peter, the eldest child, abused and brilliant, who trusts no one; and the village firefighters, battling an arsonist. Rogan's (A Heartbeat Away, LJ 4/1/93) heartwarming tale of guilt, redemption, new beginnings, and burgeoning relationships growing out of disasters makes us marvel at her ability to see so well into the souls of her troubled characters. Highly recommended.?Ellen R. Cohen, Rockville, Md.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.