The Lost Daughter

December 19, 2011
This uneven novel follows a cast of vulnerable characters as they navigate lives littered with the tragic consequences of youthful mistakes. Brooke O’Connor has carried a secret for years: at the age of 17, she bore and abandoned a child behind a motel in Windermere, Conn. The act pushed her and her lover, Alex, apart; instead of going to college as she’d planned, Brooke found work at a plant nursery and married Sean, an affable Irish tenor prone to drink, while Alex went to Japan, married, and lost a son to a heart condition. Fifteen years later, Brooke and Sean have a precocious daughter and Sean is aching for another child. It’s around this time that Alex reappears. They return to the scene of the crime to seek closure and, Brooke hopes, save her rocky marriage. What she and Alex stumble across back in Windermere, however, pushes the reader’s suspension of disbelief to the breaking point. Ferriss (Nerves of the Heart) writes many lovely, poetic passages, but this maudlin tale, full of flawed souls flung implausibly together, relies on too many coincidences. Agent: Albert Zuckerman, Writers House.

December 15, 2011
A child left for dead at birth reappears 15 years later to transform the lives of her parents. The opening pages of Ferriss' sixth novel (Leaving the Neighborhood, 2001, etc.) are a harrowing overture to a book that's soaked with domestic tension. In 1993, Brooke and her boyfriend, Alex, enter a motel to deliver what the high-schoolers are certain will be a stillbirth; the teas prescribed by a hippie-ish family friend of Brooke's were supposed to ensure that. The first chapter's visceral depiction of the delivery signals that Ferriss intends to deliver an unflinching study of parenthood, and though the book is overlong and takes some sentimental turns, she largely follows through on that promise. Fifteen years later, Brooke has married another man, Sean, with whom she has a daughter, and their life is outwardly cozy. But Sean's job at a print shop is foundering and she's batting away his pleas for another child. As Sean drowns his anger in drink, Brooke reconnects with Alex, who can't stop hating himself over their parental misadventure. After a series of revelations, the two discover that their child is alive: Alex left her breathing in a crate near the motel's dumpster, where she was taken in by a working-class Polish-immigrant family. The girl, Najda, has a severe physical disability but is whip-smart; among the novel's sharpest chapters are those she narrates, full of close observations of her dysfunctional adoptive family and guilt-wracked biological one. Ferriss' main message is that the truth will always come out, and she often gives this fairly preposterous scenario a convincing, Franzen-style realism. That skill is undercut slightly by a second message that dreams do come true; Ferriss is no Pollyanna, but she ties the bow in ways that feel more comforting than sincere. Despite some too-convenient plot twists, a powerful domestic novel.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

January 1, 2012

Brooke and Alex were high school sweethearts until an unexpected pregnancy and its gruesome end separated them. Fast-forward 15 years, Brooke is living a comfortable life with her husband and daughter when Alex, recently divorced and mourning the loss of his young son, turns up out of the blue. Seeing Alex again, coupled with her husband's insistence that she have another child, Brooke begins to unearth her long-buried guilt about her long-ago decision. Alex and Brooke begin to meet frequently, discussing their past and discovering new consequences of that night. Brooke's husband, suspecting her of cheating, begins his own downward spiral. VERDICT Dealing with multiple heavy subjects like abortion, abuse, infidelity, and crumbling marriages, this slow-paced novel takes a while to get going as Ferriss (Nerves of the Heart) dredges through the mind-numbing particulars of Alex and Brooke's current situation. This story is also often derailed by eye-rolling metaphors (a therapist is compared to a gardener pulling weeds out of a character's soul), awkward sexual scenes, and stereotypical characters, including a black single mother fresh out of rehab who speaks in poor, broken English. Still, readers who have raised families could relate to the issues addressed here.--Brooke Bolton, North Manchester P.L., IN

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2012
Graceful, poised Brooke loves her small family, but she's afraid of making it bigger, not for any medical reason but because of a heartbreaking secret from her past. When her husband pushes for more children, an old boyfriend comes back into the picturealmost too convenientlyand spurs Brooke to revisit that painful moment 15 years ago. What follows is an emotionally riveting story of reliving mistakes, seeking redemption, and finally facing the consequences of a difficult decision (with a few more handy appearances of the old boyfriend along the way). Ferriss moves the plot along at a fast clip, deftly weaving together recollections of the past and, as the disturbing truth of Brooke's secret slowly emerges, the present. All the while, Ferriss infuses the story with a heady dose of realism. Financial crisis looms as businesses close, workers get laid off, and consultants are brought in to streamline. Lost Daughter manages to be a romantic family novel with a palpable atmosphere of impending calamity. Sure, there's a happy ending, but that doesn't mean everything's right in the world.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)