By Teresa Miller
Hawk Publishing Group - 2000
ISBN: 1-930709-14-5 - Hardcover
ISBN: 1-930709-21-8 - Paperback
General Fiction
for mild sexual content
Reviewed by Jo
Rogers, MyShelf.Com
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Sometimes, families have secrets, secrets they will write down in family correspondence but nowhere else. Those secrets often have devastating effects on the family left to sort out what happened after the correspondent is gone. And sometimes, the situation is a lot bigger than letters and journals. These are the lessons learned by young Marie Wallace and, in later years, by her daughter, Nora Catron.
As the story begins, Marie Wallace, fifteen, is tired of hearing how her mother is secondhand. So, Marie and her best friend Christine, have planned a way for Marie to take a forbidden bus trip to Fayetteville, Arkansas to see Kathleen Wallace in the hospital where she is being treated for breast cancer. In the early 1950s, the treatment is always devastating and seldom successful. Kathleen tells Marie she has almost finished her treatment and will be home in three weeks. She does not tell her she is going to die.
Teresa Miller uses letters, diaries, and other documents to tell an absorbing story of love, conflict, and betrayal. The story spans three generations and is told first from the viewpoint of Marie. Then the viewpoint shifts abruptly to her daughter, Nora. However, the shift only heightens the story and keeps the reader guessing until the very end, when most of the secrets are finally revealed.