Child of My Heart

by Alice McDermott

In Alice McDermott's first work of fiction since her best-selling, National Book Award-winning Charming Billy, a woman recalls her fifteenth summer with the wry and bittersweet wisdom of hindsight.

The beautiful child of older parents, raised on the eastern end of Long Island, Theresa is her town's most sought-after babysitter--cheerful, poised, an effortless storyteller, a wonder with children and animals. Among her charges this fateful summer is Daisy, her younger cousin, who has come to spend a few quiet weeks in this bucolic place. While Theresa copes with the challenge presented by the neighborhood's waiflike children, the tumultuous households of her employers, the attentions of an aging painter, and Daisy's fragility of body and spirit, her precocious, tongue-in-check sense of order is tested as she makes the perilous crossing into adulthood. In her deeply etched rendering of all that happened that seemingly idyllic season, McDermott once again peers into the depths of everyday life with inimitable insight and grace.

Genres: Fiction, Coming Of Age, Literary Fiction, Contemporary, Audiobook, Novels, Adult

242 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1984

About the author

Alice McDermott (born June 27, 1953) is Johns Hopkins University's Writer-in-Residence. Born in Brooklyn, New York, McDermott attended St. Boniface School in Elmont, Long Island, NY [1967], Sacred Heart Academy in Hempstead NY [1971], the State University of New York at Oswego, receiving her BA in 1975, and later received her MA from the University of New Hampshire in 1978.

She has taught at the UCSD and American University, has been a writer-in-residence at Lynchburg and Hollins Colleges in Virginia, and was lecturer in English at the University of New Hampshire. Her short stories have appeared in Ms., Redbook, Mademoiselle, and Seventeen.

The 1987 recipient of a Whiting Writers Award, and three-time Pulitzer Prize for Fiction nominee, lives outside Washington, with her husband, a neuroscientist, and three children.

Reviews

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 Stars

Alice McDermott's novel Child of My Heart is the tale of one summer in 15 year old Theresa's life in the early 1960's.

What I loved about this novel:

I enjoyed being in East Hampton in the summer."The day had grown warm, but it was perfect June warmth, soft as water on our skin . . ."

The relationship between Theresa and her younger cousin Daisy is a special kind of infatuation between older and younger girls that is rarely celebrated in novels.

Theresa is a much beloved local babysitter. "If there was any trick, any knack, to my success as a minder of children, it was, I suppose, the fact that I was as delighted with my charges as they were with me." Her interactions with these youngsters are infused with love and concern. She's old enough to be a responsible caretaker and young enough to still be able to play imaginatively and draw them into these worlds. I can easily relate to these sections of the novel. I, too, was the neighborhood babysitter in great demand. I loved making tents, carrying picnics into the woods, making up stories, having squirt gun battles, and so much more.

McDermott beautifully details these ordinary, industrious days of Theresa bringing Daisy along on her work of walking dogs, feeding cats and caring for toddler Flora. And then slowly under the surface shadows grow. Daisy's bruises don't heal, Flora's mother leaves, Flora's father drinks a lot and stares at Theresa.

McDermott's style is restrained, her prose is lean and elegant.


What didn't work so well for me:

Theresa didn't always ring true as a character for me.

While I spent most of my teen summers babysitting, my parents frequently had to pry the telephone out of my hand when I was home as I connected to my friends. And any spare time I had was spent meeting up with them. Not a single friend of Theresa's appears in the story, not even a mention of one or why there might not be any.

Theresa is full of confidence, there are no moments of angst or self doubt, very unlike any 15 year old I have ever known.

And most unsettling, McDermott doesn't convince me that Theresa would have sex, especially for her first time, with a 70 year old whom she views as an old man.

Child of My Heart is a beautifully written story rendered at times with insight and at times with ambiguity.

"I wanted them scribbled over, torn up. Start over again. Draw a world where it simply doesn't happen, a world of only color, no form. Out of my head and more to my liking: a kingdom by the sea, eternal summer, a brush of fairy wings and all dark things banished, age, cruelty, pain, poor dogs, dead cats, harried parents, lonely children, all the coming griefs, all the sentimental, maudlin tales fashioned out of the death of children."

Publication 1984

[Diane Barnes · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love Alice McDermott and her understated writing style. She seems to get into the very soul of her perfectly ordinary characters, showing us how they feel and what they think. However, it didn't work that way this time. It was a bit unsettling for me as a reader. Fifteen year old Theresa, responsible babysitter and pet walker extraordinaire, seemed much too mature for her age, juxtaposed against her ability to interact with young children at their own level. She is a budding beauty, and the fathers of her charges seem quite lecherous when they are around her, especially the 70 year old artist/father of Flora, a two and a half year old whose mother just takes off, leaving Theresa as a protector and caretaker during the day. Also visiting for the summer is Daisy, a weak and vulnerable eight year old cousin who adores her, and the neighboring Moran kids, neglected and starved for attention. We come to see early on that none of these kids is going to grow up without severe problems.

Theresa's enjoyment of these older men's attentions was eerie. She seemed to have no friends of her own, of either sex, no interest in normal teen activities like listening to music or hanging out, and no one to interact with except the children. I read with a sense of foreboding which increased as I went along. In the end, I was left with the feeling that Theresa had no real emotions about the things that went on that summer, things which might have had real impact on other girls her age.

As I said, unsettling. Not my favorite McDermott, but won't discourage me from reading more of her backlist.

[Connie G · Rating 4 out of 5]

Theresa is the only child of older parents living in a beach town in eastern Long Island. The beautiful girl has a special way with children and animals with her nurturing personality, wonderful imagination, and great storytelling skills. The fifteen-year-old girl is caring for her younger cousin, Daisy, for the summer. She's also stopping at neighbor's homes to care for cats and dogs, and babysit for a toddler, Flora. The neglected children next door are also drawn to Theresa.

Theresa and her cousin have a beautiful relationship. Daisy is the overlooked middle child of a large family, and Theresa suspects the younger girl may have medical problems. Daisy idolizes the older girl and wants to be just like her someday.

It's a "coming of age" summer for the teenage girl. Theresa is noticing the interactions between the male and female parents of the children. The fathers of her charges notice her great beauty. Flora's father, a 70-year-old artist, has great charisma and wants Theresa to become his "Lolita." I wondered whether someone writing today might portray the man in a more dangerous manner. I also thought it unlikely that a teenager would be attracted to an arthritic old man. However, Theresa went to a convent school so she probably had few opportunities to interact with boys her age.

Alice McDermott's book is lovely understated literary fiction, and Theresa is a delightful protagonist. I also loved the cover showing a "lollipop tree," one of Theresa's creative ideas.

[Felice · Rating 5 out of 5]

It isn’t uncommon for a teenage girl to experience an intense friendship with a younger child; to have an overwhelming affection for a living doll. This relationship is based on companionship, mothering and anxiety about growing up. This type of relationship is the basis of Child of My Heart by Alice McDermott.


Theresa is a parent approved Pied Piper in her 1960’s Hampton neighborhood. Her working class parents moved to this affluent area when Theresa was a child in hopes that access to a more cash heavy world would better her chances in life. So far it’s brought her access but through the back door. Theresa is the most desired babysitter and pet-sitter of the rich.


During her fifteenth summer Theresa gets a tag-along. Her eight year old cousin Daisy is spending the summer with her. Daisy is a loving little girl. Her family life is crowded and Daisy has been lost in the shuffle. She and Theresa are a perfect fit and it isn’t long before Theresa sees all that is going on with Daisy.


As the summer progresses we get an insider’s view of the neighborhood: the grieving, the absentee parents, divorces, leering fathers and runaway mothers. Theresa and Daisy are the anecdote to their affection-less lives for most of the children they watch. However, as mature and perceptive as Theresa is she is still only a fifteen year old. It’s impossible for her to save everyone or to always make the right choices for herself.


McDermott has filled Child of My Heart with the kinds of details that evoke an emotional response from the reader. Her depiction of Theresa’s movement between her charges and the adult world she’ll soon be a member of is both touching and alarming. This is a bittersweet jewel of a novel. Alice McDermott has captured a moment in time with

[Cheryl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really 2 and 1/2 stars. A woman recalls the summer she was fifteen and babysitting neighborhood children in Long Island. Her eight year old cousin Daisy comes to spend a few weeks with her, helping out with the babysitting duties. Some lovely descriptions of carefree summer days, but not much plot until near the end of the book. Then two major things happen, but are rushed through too quickly. (One thing I was uncomfortable with, and doubt it would've ocurred in real life.) An OK read.

[Ron Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

Call it "Reviving Ophelia - Again." In 1994, Mary Pipher galvanized the nation with her exposé of the poisonous social system girls enter when they become teenagers. This year, it's the novelists' turn, and their descriptions of adolescence are even more provocative than Pipher's psychological study.

Alice McDermott's "Child of My Heart" is the third stunningly well-written novel this year to show a teenage girl confront challenges no one should ever have to endure. Her book follows the wrenching "Lovely Bones," by Alice Sebold, which opens with the rape and murder of its 14-year-old narrator, and "In the Image," by Dara Horn, which watches a high-schooler search for God after the death of her best friend.

McDermott's approach is remarkably minimalist, particularly compared to these two other terrifying and exhilarating novels. Through most of this poignant coming-of-age story nothing dramatic takes place - lunch, sunbathing, changing a diaper - but it's arresting nonetheless because McDermott has such a fine ear for the blended tones of childhood and adulthood.

Fifteen-year-old Theresa lives on the east side of Long Island, as close to the monied class as her parents can place her. It's all part of their weirdly deliberate plan to help her catch the eye of a wealthy young man. To that end, they encourage her to baby-sit and pet-sit in "the right sort of homes," all the better to cross paths with the heir of some famous fortune.

As an only child, Theresa has long been included in the world of adults, and she describes her parents and their plans with disturbing perception. This is the story of the summer she hovered knowingly on the threshold between girlhood and womanhood.

Her narrative demonstrates all the revisionist insight and self-deceit of retrospection. It vacillates subtly between justifying her innocence and confessing her complicity in the tragedy of that season.

With a faltering pose of witty objectivity, Theresa suggests that she was a far better parent than any of the actual parents around her. Rich or poor, young or old, all these mothers and fathers suffer from the kind of self-absorption that makes their children suffer - either the physical neglect she sees in the dilapidated home next door or the psychological abandonment she witnesses in the mansions of the rich and famous.

Fortunately for all these kids, whether dressed in stained T-shirts or fresh Baby Gap jumpers, Theresa is a reflexively good caregiver. She knows how a well-timed fairy tale or rabbit hunt can obliterate hurt feelings. She knows how to enlist children in their own best interests - to nap, eat right, and treat each other kindly. She knows how to keep them from thinking about the shadows of neglect cast across their lives. Unfortunately, what she doesn't know - and still can't fully admit - is when her charges need more help than she can provide.

It's beautiful and sad to watch. Theresa responds to these needs by establishing a rhythm of care that drowns out the shouts of angry parents, the squeal of their cars driving away, the obscene sounds of adultery upstairs. And she describes all this and her own simple days in a bilingual voice that speaks both innocence and wisdom.

For Theresa it was a time when she clung to her girlhood by embracing the children around her - particularly her little cousin Daisy who came to spend a few months at the beach. She's fragile and easily bruised, and in the twilight of this remembered summer, a sweet symbol of the waning child in Theresa's own heart.

After all, Theresa sees how sexy she is and how her body distracts all the fathers she works for. "My easy-to-admire childhood beauty," she recalls, "was quickly becoming something a little thinner and sharper and certainly more complicated."

Indeed, every man in the novel fantasizes about her. (As a parent desperately in need of baby-sitters, I had my own fantasies about Theresa - more chaste, but no less intense.) She walks through a thin fog of lechery that seeps out of the men around her - an atmosphere that repels and excites her, even as she senses it marks the passing of her own innocence.

Eventually, it's clear that Theresa is using her considerable powers of distraction and persuasion on us. Her story is a gorgeous attempt to conflate her sexual initiation with the death of a child under her care, as if both these events were regrettable but inevitable steps toward maturity. It's a disorienting strategy that complicates the novel considerably and calls into question all the self-possessed wisdom we like to imagine we've gained about our own past.

McDermott is something of a specialist in the literature of wry sorrow - she's Irish, after all. Her previous novel, "Charming Billy" (National Book Award winner, 1998), described a lovable alcoholic who could never marry the woman he loved. She's not far from that theme in "Child of My Heart," but this time she's wound sorrow tightly around a spine of resilience to produce a story that's more profound and unsettling.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/1127/p2...

[Meghan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is superb, and no other word can even remotely describe how beautiful it was. I have never met a character who had the ability to tell stories as the girl did in Child of My Heart. She is truly wonderful.

[snackywombat (v.m.) · Rating 2 out of 5]

Try as I might, Alice McDermott's writing often leaves me cold. I never love, love it but find the characters engaging and the prose really pretty. But then the novel ends and I'm always like, meh. If a good book were a sunset, it'd be the kind that lingers in the sky well past nighttime to give the horizon a purplish tinge. It stays with you. But the story of the perfectly beautiful, perfectly well-mannered and responsible Theresa, beloved by all the toddlers and pets of her small Hamptons town, wasn't messy enough, it was too well-calibrated. The fifteen-year-old Madonna spends an idyllic summer with her doomed little cousin Daisy, and by turns becomes obsessed with a famous painter in his 70s whose toddler she babysits. It's kind of a Lolita in reverse, but not nearly as engrossing or titillating.

[Jeanette · Rating 4 out of 5]

Superb. Heart to heart and most excellent word craft in building the summer baby sitting world of Theresa. Coming of age in her beauty and her gifts for connections to the little ones' worlds in which she sometimes sets the stage and becomes the chorus voice.

This depicts the essential and elemental love of an older cousin for her young charge in such a mental and physical connection that I almost gave it 5 stars. It was close.

Alice McDermott puts this normal, every day situation of baby sitting, tasks of animal care and adult observations into a coming of age tale I'll remember. Sad and joyful- with all the attributions of young life's realities.

[Terri Garrett · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is sooooo beyond fiction.

I don’t care what kind of prose you use...but if you expect me to believe a 15 year old wants to bone a 70 year old. You are going to have to work harder to convince me.

This book is filled with a bunch of Humbert Humbert’s preying on a 15 year old child. And it’s not even poignant or satirical. I’m actually supposed to buy into it as being status quo.

Gross.

I cannot believe a woman wrote this.

[Maam · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was okay to horrible. Not a terribly fascinating read (or listen to), I did get into it enough to like the characters and want to know what happens to Daisy. I should have stopped reading. That part of the story was disappointing. Teresa does nothing about her illness and then in the end, after an injury she just goes home and dies.

the most distressing part for me was Teresa's relationship with the old artist. It made me uncomfortable at best and when I got the CD (I listened to the story) I had to skip a few segments. I had no desire to hear about a 15 year old willingly lose her virginity to a 70 year old man!

Waste of my time. Will not be picking up anymore books by this author.

[Denise · Rating 2 out of 5]

I could not reconcile the glowing reviews on this book's cover by Anna Quindlen, Margaret Atwood and the NY Times Book Review with my own experience of it. The plot was almost nonexistent: a teenager babysits for the summer. We are left with the development of relationships, but even those don't materialize. For example, I could've used a little more of an explanation about why the main character decided to lose her virginity to a philandering septagenarian. McDermott is an award-winning author, and I'd love to get why, but I don't, not with this book anyway.

[Sonia · Rating 1 out of 5]

Teenage girl plays being mommy to all the children and pets of the neighborhood during the course of a summer, adults being absent and careless in a disquieting, unreal way- if not to utterly flirt with her. While playing with her live dolls in a last bout of childhood, she also kind of plays Lolita with an elderly artist, provoking the jealousy of his housemaid. Meantime she totally neglects her beloved little cousin’s health until it’s too late. All of this well written though.

[Melody Schwarting · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful, poignant, a little painful. A great summer read, slow and well-written and meditative.

Content warnings: child death, open-door scene Theresa is sought after by the fathers of her charges, animal death an animal is hit by a car; infant wild animals die

[Mary Ronan Drew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alice McDermott is a writer akin to Stewart O'Nan and Anita Brookner whose work is quiet and slow. McDermott won the National Book Award for Charming Billy and Child of My Heart is worthy of such recognition as well.

The narrator, a beautiful girl whose parents have moved to the Hamptons and encouraged her to care for the children of and to do pet sitting for rich and powerful summer visitors, hope that she will make a "good" marriage, something not quite as peculiar in the early 1960s as it seems today. She invites her favorite cousin, Daisy, to stay with her for the summer.

Slowly, as the two girls walk the dogs and pet the cats and care for the child of summer people from the city the precarious state of Daisy's health, the wandering eye of an old and famous painter, and the dysfunctional family living next door come together to create a stunning denouement.

[Brooklyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars - might improve on another reading. Beautifully written - just found myself. It terribly engaged by characters. You know how's it's going to wind up miles before you get there - and it all seems very muted. As I said - could be me or my mood at the moment.

[Pauline · Rating 2 out of 5]

I gave this book 2 stars because I did actually finish it. It wasn't bad but it wasn't really good either and it certainly wasn't great. However, I feel this would have been much better as a short story.

There was some lovely and evocative passages of youthful parent free summers . Which doesn't happen much nowadays so I liked the nostalgia . There was just too much repetition that didn't add to the story. The main character Theresa is portrayed as a very capable and responsible 15 yr old so her eventual sexual liaison with the elderly father of one of her charges was incongruent with the narrative. More of a male fantasy than a young sexually emerging female fantasy IMHO. Despite the fact he was a well off and amorous artist who when he wasn't drinking scotch and smoking cigarettes was laboring over large abstract oils, still didn't make him believable as her first love. Not at all.
Towards the end of the story when I was still waiting for something to happen i thought maybe there would be a relationship between all the aspirin the babysitter and the artist lover were feeding the poor sickly child who had all these mysterious bruises. Isn't aspirin a blood thinner....?
I thought for the longest time it was a story about physical abuse.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can't remember why I picked up this book (audibly speaking, that is) but I'm glad I did. It's not the kind of thing I normally read, but I really enjoyed it. The story is about a 15-year-old girl (Theresa) who is just coming into her womanhood, and her 8-year-old cousin who comes to visit for a summer. Unfortunately, the cousin (Daisy) has a fatal disease, and it is Theresa's love for her which causes this disease to be discovered too late. Because Theresa is determined to give Daisy a lovely summer without the regular worries she has in her own hectic home, so she doesn't mention to anybody the strange bruises on Daisy's body. There are other neglected, ill-cared-for children in the book, which are heartbreaking. Then there is Theresa's burgeoning sexuality, which is maybe the most disturbing thing (the fact of who takes advantage of it the most disturbing). But the STORY is good, and I am glad I read this!

[JimZ · Rating 2 out of 5]

I used it really like Alice McDermott's work (At Weddings and Wakes I cried)…I did not like this book, too monotonous.

[Judy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have been aware of Alice McDermott for several years but this is the first of her novels I've read. It is her fifth novel out of seven and I was entranced by it.

Theresa is an only child with older parents, who have moved from Queens to the smallest house in an upscale vacation town on the eastern end of Long Island. The parents decided to raise their daughter among the rich in the hopes that she will make a good marriage and improve her lot in the world. That, to me, is such an Irish feudal concept, somehow tragically innocent in modern times.

The entire story in Child of My Heart is tragically innocent. Theresa is a beautiful, whimsical, well-read fifteen year old, the most sought after babysitter in the town. She also cares for people's cats and dogs, while keeping her eye on the hapless children next door. Both parents work long hours so Theresa has a cultivated self sufficiency. Her ability and propensity to care for creatures younger and smaller than herself is almost scary.

Enter eight year old cousin Daisy, come to spend the summer, second to last child in a blue-collar family of eight children, strangely fragile and pale with mysterious bruises on her body. Along with four dogs, three cats, the five neighborhood dead end kids and Flora, toddler of a local artist, Theresa takes Daisy under her wing intending to give her a special, magical summer.

I fell into complete sympathy with Theresa. With several glaring differences, I was like her when I was a pre-teen. I had two younger sisters, I was the oldest kid in my neighborhood, and I felt like the fairy godmother of all these kids. I fancied that I had a secret insight into their souls because I was more close to them than their mothers.

As Theresa makes her daily rounds of pet care and baby sitting, with Daisy in tow, we see the various more or less dysfunctional rich summer people through Theresa's penetrating mind. Despite her ability to make children and animals happy, Theresa is self-absorbed and ignorant as only a young teen can be.

I felt as protective of Theresa as she felt for Daisy. Helplessly impotent as the reader, I watched her move inexorably into emotional and physical danger, wanting to shout, "No! Don't go there!" But of course she does and tragedy strikes. Then, as is also so true of those tender years, she emerges fairly unscathed, protected by the very self-absorption that drives adults crazy.

Child of My Heart was to me a thing of wonder written with the verve and grace of an Irish ballad by a woman who did not forget what it was like to be fifteen in the relatively safer world of about thirty years ago.

[Michael Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s around 1962 (I think) and Theresa, a fifteen-year-old only child, lives out at the end of Long Island with her older, Irish middle-class parents. (They had moved as close as they could get to the Hamptons in the hope their daughter could somehow enter the wealthy upper classes by sheer propinquity.) Theresa is beautiful, and smart, and a natural storyteller, and she’s the town’s prized babysitter because small children and animals uniformly adore her. She also possesses, tranquilly, an ego that confirms her own abilities, but her every action proves just how able she is. This is a girl who has far more on her mind, and much better ways to spend her time, than power shopping with her friends. Now it’s summer and her eight-year-old cousin, Daisy, has come out from Queens to visit for a couple of weeks, just to get away from a house full of siblings, and the narrative tells how they make the rounds of Theresa’s daily jobs -- taking a toddler to the beach for a famous local artist (an elderly man with a young wife), and exercising the Irish setter of a summer couple when they go back into the city to work and play, and checking on the trio of cats that live in another house rented by a wealthy couple from Westchester (the cats are rented, too). Then there are the Moran kids next door, well-meaning but inclined to leave a path of detritus and destruction wherever they go. They dote on Theresa, too, naturally, and she manages to keep them all generally out of trouble. There’s also the maybe-ghost who sits by the window up in her attic, and the English couple with the Scotties, and the lollipop tree Theresa convinces all the kids really exists. (And maybe it does.) But she also has a milestone of her own to overcome where that artist is concerned. And -- very finally -- what should she do about the bruises that keep appearing mysteriously all over Daisy’s body? This is a rather quiet, slowly paced book, filled with beautifully crafted and subtly nuanced prose, and you should find a quiet place to read it. Perhaps in a hammock under the lollipop tree. And, I promise, it’s going to stay with you.

[Annika Marshall · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting thing about this book is there are no chapter breaks and almost no jumps in time - you start in the morning and follow Theresa through her day until she goes to sleep. I didn’t like it as much as Absolution, but the things that make Absolution good make this book good too.

[Johnsergeant · Rating 4 out of 5]

Downloaded from Audible.com

Narrator: Sheryl Bernstein
Publisher: Macmillan Audio, 2003
Length: 7 hours and 52 min.

Publisher's Summary
In Alice McDermott's new work of fiction a woman recalls her bittersweet 15th summer. The beautiful child of older parents, raised on the eastern end of Long Island among the summer houses of the rich, Theresa is the town's most sough-after babysitter - cheerful, poised, an effortless storyteller, a wonder with children and animals. Among her charges this fateful summer is Daisy, her younger cousin, who has left a crowded working-class household in the city to spend a few quiet weeks in this bucolic place, under Theresa's benevolent eye.

Theresa must cope with the challenges presented by the neighborhood's waiflike children, the tumultuous households of her employers, the mysteriously compelling attentions of an aging painter, and Daisy's fragility of body and spirit as she makes the perilous crossing into adulthood.

McDermott's deeply etched rendering of all that happened that seemingly idyllic season explores the depths of everyday life with inimitable insight and grace.

[Harriet · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gorgeous, supple, deft work of fiction -- a cousin of the other McDermott novels I know, and yet utterly in its own world, brilliant in creating this world. What McDermott does so, so well is something so hard to do -- she creates a first person voice of a 15 year old girl who resists spilling all her thoughts. Always there's a careful holding back, so that a reader moves closer, closer, trying to listen even more carefully and to understand what's not being said. How this central character moves through these few days one summer, on the posh part of Long Island (when her own family is the opposite of posh) -- how she takes care of numerous children and animals -- how she hovers around a much older womanizer of an artist -- all of this is purely fascinating and very human. I love this character; she is one of the most pure-hearted, loving, and yet risk-taking characters I've ever met.

[Laura · Rating 2 out of 5]

Looks pretty, pretty, But.. a rather disturbing coming-of-age story - I believe that is the euphemism used for a girl's sexual initiation - only this time it's with an old man - 70+ if I remember correctly - I can't really get past imagining any 14/15 year old having the hots for Mr OLD.
Can you tell - for me this story is NOT working - the parts I liked are her relationships with the younger children and yet again these areas also grate - her insights into baby's needs are just a little too insightful for a 14 year old - I guess her maturity is meant to offset, explain her yearnings for the Old Man.
A novel with a lot of context problems - the writing is ok, subtle, wise, polished - descriptions excellent, nice rendering of a sleepy seaside town, nice insights into occupations of young children - but possibly author working out her angst against teenage sexual abuse?? Maybe not hers personally but something close to home.

[Maya Lang · Rating 5 out of 5]

A mesmerizing, hypnotic novel that plunges you into a teenage girl's summer with her younger charges. I felt I had lived this summer or perhaps dreamed it; Alice McDermott is so good at evoking characters and place that her novels seep into your brain, tricking you into thinking they are the product of your own imagination. Here is prose at its evocative best, conjuring a wistful, nostalgically tinged summer ripe with details and memorable characters. I will remember not only Daisy in her shoes and Flora Dora with her bottle, but various images as well: 3 peaches for the walk to the beach; the attic with its racks of clothes; the house, with its warm nooks. A masterful novel.

[Sterlingcindysu · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great summertime book to start the summer of '15!

To what extent do we make summertime the best time of year to our family? Especially the children? Theresa is 15 and the best babysitter in town--better than the mothers and fathers. She knows how to calm children and create magical games and stories. She even does that for one of her charges' father, making the 70 year old painter feel young just for a few minutes.

So how far do we go to make/create/support a fairy tale?

Sad to think this couldn't happen now with so many phones--no 15 year old could spend hours and days and weeks just in the company of children.

[Denise Kruse · Rating 5 out of 5]

A superb, moving story about a teen, Theresa, who spends a summer caring for the children and sometimes the pets of various adults in her vacation community in Long Island. It is through her thoughtful eyes that we experience the summer's events (which I am not going to try to tell because Alice McDermott does it way better). I love this writing.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Impeccably written, as expected. A coming-of-age/loss of innocence story of a young girl in charge of her cousin for the summer. It's sweet, yet rather haunting, with many layers beneath the seemingly mundane details of what turns out to be a deeply meaningful summer. A moving read.

[Ayelet Waldman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well, it's no Charming Billy, but since that's one of the best contemporary novels I've ever read, it seems unfair to hold her to that standard, even if it is her own. The main character was a bit too good to be true, but the writing was pure McDermott - spare and lovely.