Yesterday No More

Some novels begin with hype and hoopla, making us almost wary of turning their pages, wondering whether we are going to be disappointed afte...

Some novels begin with hype and hoopla, making us almost wary of turning their pages, wondering whether we are going to be disappointed after all. Some others 8212; only a very, very few 8212; begin quietly, and then, magically, draw us inside their pages, and we never want them to end.

Alice McDermott8217;s fifth novel, Child of My Heart, steals up on us quietly, without warning, and with felicity 8212; like a brief, sunshiny moment in the middle of a grey afternoon. Theresa, our fifteen-year-old narrator, and the only child of working parents, lives on the eastern end of Long Island. Her parents hope she will marry into one of the rich families who throng the island in the summer 8212; and Theresa knows this.

Wise beyond her years, she charms everyone with her easy kindness 8212; the children she babysits, the dogs she walks, the cats she feeds, and the absent-minded, sometimes physically absent parents of all these lost children. Theresa8217;s eight-year-old cousin Daisy 8212; 8220;poor Daisy8221;, as everyone calls her, one of the numerous children of a harassed mother and a stern policeman father in Queens 8212; is here to spend the summer with Theresa. Flora, the toddler daughter of an aging painter and his vanished wife, has also been abandoned to Theresa8217;s care. And then there are the Moran children who live next door, allowed to run wild by their mother. And as Theresa remarks, perhaps wild Petey, who adores Daisy and tries to sleep beneath their window at night, is the loneliest child in the world.

This Long Island summer, a season of long bright mornings, languorous afternoons, walks among the wildflowers and swims in the sea, is a world that we wish would never end. But it is already a fragile, doomed loveliness. We know this in the opening paragraph of the story, when we see a litter of three wet, blind baby rabbits that hang precariously to life until they cannot hang on any longer 8212; and this is what foreshadows the several tragedies, small and great, that lie ahead. Theresa observes the world around her, a world where nothing seems to happen, where the sunlight seems suspended in the air forever.

And yet, the stray signs she notices 8212; the bruises on Daisy8217;s feet, the juice bottles thrust one after the other in baby Flora8217;s hands, the deep sadness of the painter 8212; only confirm what she already knows, which is that the world is a very real, very paradoxical place.

And so, by the end of the story, even before we know it, many things have happened. Summer has drawn to a close, several relationships have ended and new ones have taken their place, a cat has died, a dog has been 8220;taken care of8221;, three baby rabbits have ended up on the doorstep 8212; and Theresa, unable to win her battle against destiny, has grown up. McDermott8217;s prose is simple, unadorned, and yet it resonates with music and feeling. We feel that we have been right there with these young girls, during these idyllic afternoons that should never have ended, during the moments of sound and stillness, poetry and passion. We have been back in the warm, sleepy afternoons of our own childhoods.

We close the pages of this luminous, moving tale with regret and gratitude. Child of My Heart is one of the great novels of growing up.