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Publisher:
HarperCollins |
Release
Date: 03/30/2004 |
ISBN:
0061093343 |
Awards:
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Format
Reviewed: Paperback |
Buy
it at Amazon |
Read
an Excerpt |
Genre:
Fiction |
Reviewed:
2004 |
Reviewer:
Allie Bates |
Reviewer
Notes: |
Copyright
MyShelf.com |
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Fault Lines
By Ann River Siddons
Fault
Lines is about as Southern as it can get and is full of symbols.
Take the heroines name for example: Meritt Fowler. She is
indeed meritorious, going way beyond any vision of the call of duty
of the contemporary homemaker. Moreover, things in her life are
fouled up. Caretaking, she declares of herself is my hot button.
The smallest allegation of moral slipshoddiness was my Achilles
heel. Caretaking is what her life is all about, so much so,
that she loses her self. So Meritts merit is in
her caretaking, until the day it all becomes too much, taking care
of the live-in-Alzheimer-suffering-mother-in-law, neglected runaway
daughter Glynn, the dumping out of the rats from the humane traps
set by her husband . . . (wait reader, is that another symbol to
examine?) So if she is like a rat in the humane traps set by her
husband, and she is setting them free, what will she do about her
own problems, which stem from the trap her own life has become?
On the other hand, are the rats (which Pom had once poisoned to
die in the walls and rot) symbols of the ugly problems she ought
to be secretly liberating?
Merritts
husband Pom is a physician-fund-raiser out to save the world but
he is married to his job, his patients, his fundraising activities
and relies heavily on Merrit to save him. After she raises her little
sister Laura, they have an uber-battle (not sure what this means?)
and eventually Laura becomes an actress in Hollywood; she repeats
a similar conflict with her daughter, who runs away to Aunt Laura.
Merritt has no choice but to go after her into the earthquake territory
where Laura lives. Which of the fault lines are important here?
The fault lines in the earth, or the ones in Merritts life.
Moreover, if the Teutonic plates in Merritts life settle,
how will things be then?
Siddons
presents an acutely emotional melodrama about a family in crisis,
about a woman in crisis when something just has to give. Deeply
Southern in flavor and in sense of place and voice, Fault Lines
lays bare the Southern womans intimate view of leading
lives of quiet desperation. This reviewer found Fault
Lines to be quite as emotionally exhausting as any Faulkner
or OConner story ever read, and quite as tragic. Bewareit
should be read with a generous supply of freshly ironed white lace
handkerchiefs.
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