Coming-of-age novel tells of the bright and the bruised
CLAYTON, CA — It was book-sorting time around the scatter last week when I came across Alice McDermott’s “Child of My Heart.”
The book was a gift from the widowed husband of a dear friend and, although I wrapped it in protective Mylar, it remained unread. My loss, but now both my and your gain.
I never hesitate to review an older book when it’s from a novelist as fine as McDermott and can still be found in used bookstores or your public library.
“Child of My Heart” is a coming-of-age story unlike any other I’ve read. Theresa is 15 and an only child of older parents, Irish Catholic immigrants. Her parents move to Long Island when she is only 2. Theresa is stunningly beautiful. She says her hard-working parents “moved way out on Long Island because they knew rich people lived way out on Long Island, even if only for the summer months, and putting me in a place where I might be spotted by some of them was their equivalent of offering me every opportunity.”
The story takes place in the late 1950s or early 1960s. During a summer of babysitting, Theresa sits for a famous artist’s pampered toddler and does cat-feeding and dog-walking for more wealthy summer residents.
Her favorite cousin, 8-year-old Daisy, is staying with her for the entire summer. Daisy adores her cousin, and the feeling is mutual. All the children and all the animals love Theresa, as do their parents and owners. But their beach-side days are not always idyllic. Life can get in the way – divorce, death of pets, domestic violence.
Thought she is a student at an all-girls Catholic school, we do not know if Theresa has any school friends. We know she reads classic literature, loves storytelling and is comfortable being responsible for others while her parents work out of town, not returning home until 7. She understands the closed Irish Catholic backgrounds of her and Daisy’s parents.
Theresa delights Daisy by dressing her in clothing that she wore at Daisy’s age. Her world is basically her own, except for what she shares with Daisy, while Daisy shares her own sheltered thoughts. Daisy is the child of Theresa’s heart, two hearts remarkably alike.
Almost from the day of Daisy’s arrival, Theresa notices bruising on her cousin’s body. The bruising persists throughout the summer, but she says nothing, attributing it to Daisy’s rambunctious brothers and banishing thoughts that it might be something else.
Theresa’s parent’s hopes for her future are not lost on her. She does not shy away from the way men look at her. Throughout the novel, her voice is curiously as youthful as it is wise.
McDermott is not afraid to write of Theresa’s struggle to choose which life events she will or will not embrace. As we all learn, life with its moral realities resides tenuously alongside our paths to maturity.
Sunny Solomon is a freelance writer and head of the Clayton Book Club. Visit her website at bookinwithsunny.com for her latest recommendations or just to ‘talk books.’
Sunny Solomon
Sunny Solomon holds an MA in English/Creative Writing, San Francisco State University. She is a book reviewer for “The Clayton Pioneer” and her poetry and other writing has been published in literary journals, one chapbook, In the Company of Hope and the collection, Six Poets Sixty-six Poems. She was the happy manager of Bonanza Books, Clayton, CA and Clayton Books, Clayton, CA. She continues to moderate a thriving book club that survived the closure of the store from which it began. Sunny currently lives next to the Truckee in Reno, NV.