|
[ Home ]
[ About | Reviews | Search | Submit ]
Summer is approaching and Dr Matt Seleckis is looking forward to spending more time with his family, and with his father in the mountains of Utah. On a weekend visit, Hirsch sends Matt to the attic to bring down the old cans of film stored up there. He always dreads seeing those home movies, but he indulges his father. Also in the closet is a large manila envelope containing photos of his adored, dead mother. It's quite a shock. Hilly is nude. Most of his childhood memories are good ones -- spending summers at this very cabin, and Steve Minelli, his best friend that he only saw during the summer who lived next door. But then there's Steve's father, the monster of his nightmares. The photos are very disturbing. Matt doesn't mention them to anyone, but takes them home with him. A man dying of cancer begs Matt to put him out of his pain. Matt finally accedes to his request and gives him an overdose of a narcotic, then falsifies the record. This too starts to haunt him. Then his father insists that Matt go on a hunting trip with him in the autumn. Matt doesn't want to kill anything but Hirsch prevails and Matt starts training for what might be a very strenuous trip. Matt is Denise's second husband. Her first husband had died three years earlier. Matt had loved Denise for a long time, but left Salt Lake City when she became engaged. When he came back, he proposed, and now they have an 18-month-old child. Denise is a Mormon, a music therapist and a flautist. Her aged father now lives in a Mormon assisted living home. He doesn't quite approve of Matt but accepts him. Denise wants to plan a summer trip. She wants to take her father Clem to Italy, to the places he spent his honeymoon. Clem agrees but then secretly calls Matt and asks him to tell Denise that he is too sick to go on such a strenuous outing. The book is full of the equivocations that one must go through in order to live one's daily life. It shows us how unreliable our childhood memories are and the hold that father's have on their children. Rigbey is a Brit married to an American. She understands the American psyche very well.
Reviewed by Barbara Franchi, February 2006
[ Top ]
QUICK SEARCH:
Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
[ About | Reviews | Search | Submit ]
[ Home ]
| 
