Review by Booklist Review
Jenny Rowan, ace editor at a local TV station, had a horrific childhood: kidnapped at age eight and imprisoned in a box beneath her abductor's bed, she escaped after 18 months and lived in a mall, becoming an urban legend in the process. Now she holds the world at a remove, keeping her past private and experiencing events primarily through the videos she assembles yet, ironically, she becomes caregiver and confidante to others, from a fellow victim to one of the most powerful women on earth. While the world rages out of control, from wild weather to terrorist attacks on the White House, Rowan moves through it like the calm at the heart of the storm. The premise calls to mind current events in Cleveland and elsewhere, but there's more at play here. This will make you think about how indeed, if you interact with the world; how we construct our lives; how we heal from tragedy; how to carry on when nothing makes sense. The plot feels simultaneously thin and far-fetched, but this slim novel offers a wellspring for contemplation.--Graff, Keir Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Sallis (The Killer Is Dying) has always been the master of doing more with less, as he demonstrates once again with this startling experimental novella. When Emily Smith was eight years old, she was abducted and suffered unspeakable abuse at the hands of her male captor, who kept her in a box under his bed for two years. The girl finally escaped, living for 18 months in a shopping mall, eventually becoming a ward of the courts. Twenty-five years later, Emily has become "Jenny Rowan," a talented video editor for a Washington, D.C., news station. Her craft is an apt metaphor for the life that she's improvised. Fiercely independent and self-taught, Rowan refuses to see herself as a victim. When a police detective approaches her to help a young abductee, Rowan at first demurs, but she ends up giving the girl, Cheryl, a place to stay. We witness Rowan cobble together her own community, helping a family of squatters who live next door and even reaching out to the U.S. president, whose son has recently been kidnapped. The theme of working with "what you have left," a constant in Sallis's world, permeates every sentence of this slim, insightful work. Agent: Vicky Bijur, Vicky Bijur Literary Agency. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Acclaimed writer Sallis (Drive; the Lew Griffin mystery series) has written a sparse, disturbing novella set in a near future America. The narrator, Jenny Rowan, was abducted as a child and endured years of horrific abuse. After escaping her captor and then navigating through the social welfare system, Jenny creates an insulated life for herself as a production editor at a news station. Her self-imposed barriers begin to dissolve when a policeman asks her to befriend a young woman who has just been rescued from a brutal captivity. Verdict Weighing in at a meager 116 pages, this story feels decisively incomplete. There is neither suspense nor mystery, just bleak descriptions of this future America and gruesome flashbacks of Jenny's imprisonment. The highly improbable ending, which attempts to merge the political upheaval of the story with Jenny's inherent goodness, simply rings false. An optional purchase at best for libraries that have a strong following for Sallis. [See Prepub Alert, 3/11/13.]-Amy Nolan, St. Joseph, MI (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
The latest from Sallis, best known for his Lew Griffin detective series and for Drive (2006), the basis for the Ryan Gosling film of the same name. This slim book features a rarity for Sallis, a female narrator. Abducted at 8 and confined for two years to a padlocked box beneath her captor's bed, Jenny Rowan escaped at 10 and took up residence in the Westwood Mall, where, for 18 months of scavenging and contentment, she managed to evade detection. After the legend of "Mall Girl" grew and she was discovered by a security guard, Jenny ended up in the juvenile system until she petitioned for her independence on her 16th birthday. As the novel begins, Jenny, now an adult who works as an editor for a public television station, is approached by a kindly cop who somehow knows, despite sealed records, about her history and who enlists her to give whatever advice or solace she can to a young woman who's gone through a similar ordeal. Jenny is a survivor's survivor: forthright, no-nonsense, scarred but never bowed, with great compassion but none of the illusions about human nature that sometimes accompany good-heartedness. Amid political turmoil and disaster in an imagined nearfuture, she takes in the horrifically battered young woman, aids a group of squatters, reunites (in a way) with part of her family, embarks on a romance, performs feats of footage editing, and becomes, eventually, the staggeringly unlikely confidante of the president of the United States. Loose, improvisational, not infrequently sloppy and--as the foregoing synopsis suggests--dizzyingly overloaded with plot, the novel would seem doomed, but amid the pulpy turns and the missing transitions, there's a surprising power: Jenny is an irresistible character, and there are flashes here of insight and sweetness. The novelistic equivalent of a band jam session, with riffs well-worth listening to.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
