One warm September morning in 1985, not far from the town of Goddard, New Hampshire, Naomi Roth finds the drowned body of a newborn baby girl floating in the Sabbathday River. The community rapidly fingers Heather Pratt, a young single mother notorious for her affair with a married man, as the prime suspect, and after intensive interrogation by the police, Heather confesses to the crime. When Naomi, following Heather's directions, uncovers the body of a second infant-who was born on the same day as the other baby-on Heather's property, she assumes charges against the girl will be dropped. Instead, to Naomi's amazement, Heather is charged with the murder of both infants.
Naomi, herself something of an outcast in conservative Goddard, is moved and angered by Heather's plight, and goes to work with Judith Friedman, a lawyer, to defend her. But when the truth at the heart of this astonishing case finally comes to light, it is Naomi who must confront how little she has truly understood about her town, her friend, and herself.
Jean Hanff Korelitz has written a powerful, hypnotically readable work that reverberates with enormous impact.
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Though the prosecution's case is exceedingly farfetched and the D.A. clumsily duplicitous, local sentiment runs deeply against Heather, whose apathy and refusal to face reality annoy even her few supporters. What's more, the case becomes a political football when news organizations and a radical feminist group converge on the town, eager to turn Heather into a symbol of oppression. Judith mounts an impressively cohesive defense, yet in the end help comes from an unexpected source.
After the protracted courtroom drama, the essential puzzle still remains: Whose is the second baby? Oddly, Jean Hanff Korelitz telegraphs the surprise ending disappointingly early, deflating the denouement somewhat. Yet the characters at the book's core--intelligent, analytical, argumentative--and their personal dramas are intriguing enough to overshadow the small faults of plot, making The Sabbathday River a rewarding, if longish, literary mystery. --Barrie Trinkle
Moved and angered by Heather's plight--and increasingly isolated in conservative Goddard--Naomi engages the help of Judith Friedman, a lawyer and fellow "flatlander," to defend the young woman. But when the truth at the heart of this astonishing case--and the body of a second baby--comes to light, it is Naomi who must confront how little she has understood her town, her friend, and herself.
The Sabbathday River builds to a truly surprising ending that casts everything that came before in a new light. This is a hypnotic, enormously resonant novel by one of the most powerful writers to emerge in recent seasons.
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