Clara's Heart - Hardcover

Olshan, Joseph

3.63

150 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0877957444 ISBN 13: 9780877957447

Publisher: Arbor House Pub Co, 1985

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A novel about the unwanted children of the divorced rich, centers on the deep bond that develops between David and Clara, his family's Jamaican housekeeper, forcing him to straddle between two vastly different cultures

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From Publishers Weekly:

With its intricate characterization, a plot that weaves together two very different cultures, and a narrative enriched by fresh, often poignant dialogue, this is an extraordinary first novel. At its heart is the unusually close relationship betwen Clara, a Jamaican, and David Hart, who is eight years old when Clara enters his life. David's mother meets Clara in a Jamaican hotel, where the kind, wise woman is a chambermaid. The Harts are on a trip designed to lift Leona from the depression that has engulfed her since her infant daughter was found dead in her crib. Clara reaches out to Leona, soothing her in a way no one else has been able to, and the woman returns to Rye, N.Y., as the Hart's live-in housekeeper. Leona turns to spiritualism and philosophy to fight her inner emptiness, becoming estranged from her husband, who eventually moves out. It is then Clara who provides the only constancy in David's life. Yet the intensity of their friendship, and the dark secret of her past that Clara is determined to hide from David, creates an emotional chaos that is skillfully portrayed and finally resolved in this wonderful novel, which won the London Times/Jonathan Cape Young Writers' Competition. November 21
Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal:

When eight-year-old David Hart's baby sister is lost to crib death, his mother, Leona, withdraws into depression. David's father takes her on a recuperative vacation to Jamaica. David is left at home, feeling confused and abandoned. When they return, his parents bring Clara, a patois-speaking Jamaican with a mysterious past, to tend to David and keep their house in an upscale New York suburb. In the years that follow, Clara fills the emotional void in David, as his preoccupied parents separate and divorce. He enters adolescence with a deep attachment to Clara and a fascination for all things Jamaican, including the secrets of her past. Hardly your usual coming-of-age story, this smoothly written first novel is original and compelling. Recommended. Ann H. Fisher, Radford P.L., Va.
Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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