Print List Price: | $16.99 |
Kindle Price: | $12.49 Save $4.50 (26%) |
Sold by: | HarperCollins Publishers Price set by seller. |
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The Fourth Child: A Novel Kindle Edition
“A beautifully observed and thrillingly honest novel about the dark corners of family life and the long, complicated search for understanding and grace.” —Jenny Offill, author of Dept. of Speculation and Weather
“The Fourth Child is keen and beautiful and heartbreaking—an exploration of private guilt and unexpected obligation, of the intimate losses of power embedded in female adolescence, and of the fraught moments of glancing divinity that come with shouldering the burden of love.” —Jia Tolentino, New York Times bestselling author of Trick Mirror
“A remarkable family saga . . . The Fourth Child is a balm—a reminder that it is possible for art to provide a nuanced exploration of life itself.” —Rumaan Alam, author of Leave the World Behind and Rich and Pretty
The author of Break in Case of Emergency follows up her “extraordinary debut” (The Guardian) with a moving novel about motherhood and marriage, adolescence and bodily autonomy, family and love, religion and sexuality, and the delicate balance between the purity of faith and the messy reality of life.
Book-smart, devoutly Catholic, and painfully unsure of herself, Jane becomes pregnant in high school; by her early twenties, she is raising three children in the suburbs of western New York State. In the fall of 1991, as her children are growing older and more independent, Jane is overcome by a spiritual and intellectual restlessness that leads her to become involved with a local pro-life group. Following the tenets of her beliefs, she also adopts a little girl from Eastern Europe. But Mirela is a difficult child. Deprived of a loving caregiver in infancy, she remains unattached to her new parents, no matter how much love Jane shows her. As Jane becomes consumed with chasing therapies that might help Mirela, her relationships with her family, especially her older daughter, Lauren, begin to fray.
Feeling estranged from her mother and unsettled in her new high school, Lauren begins to discover the power of her own burgeoning creativity and sexuality—a journey that both echoes and departs from her mother’s own adolescent experiences. But when Lauren is confronted with the limits of her youth and independence, Jane is thrown into an emotional crisis, forced to reconcile her principles and faith with her determination to keep her daughters safe. The Fourth Child is a piercing love story and a haunting portrayal of how love can shatter—or strengthen—our beliefs.
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherHarper
- Publication dateMarch 9, 2021
- File size5186 KB
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Editorial Reviews
Review
"The Fourth Child is keen and beautiful and heartbreaking."
-- "Jia Tolentino, New York Times bestselling author""This is a work of precise social realism...[with] a backdrop for larger questions about morality, family, and obligation."
-- "Vogue"About the Author
Original bio sent from Cassandra:
Cassandra Campbell began doing voice overs as the voice for Calvin Klein's Italian commercials. This was followed by commercial and documentary recording in both English and Italian. She has recorded many audiobooks and has received several AudioFile Earphones Awards as well as an Audie(R) Award nomination. As an actress and director, she has worked at the Public, the Mint, the Berkshire Theatre Festival, Stagewest, Theatreworks, the Baltimore Shakespeare Festival, Millmountain Theatre, the National Shakespeare Company, and the New York Fringe Festival.
Jessica Winter is an editor at The New Yorker and the author of the novel Break in Case of Emergency. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Bookforum, and other publications. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her family.
Product details
- ASIN : B089SZW71C
- Publisher : Harper (March 9, 2021)
- Publication date : March 9, 2021
- Language : English
- File size : 5186 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
- Print length : 343 pages
- Page numbers source ISBN : 0062971565
- Best Sellers Rank: #453,106 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #209 in Dramas & Plays by Women
- #543 in Literary Sagas
- #1,307 in Arts & Photography (Kindle Store)
- Customer Reviews:
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But this author was apparently so anxious to display her superior writing skills that she just ran over her story with a steamroller. The chronology is a bit confusing in the beginning. This is remedied by labeling the chapters with the character's names. But there was so much unnecessary stream of consciousness type verbiage that I was left just wishing that I could understand where we were, and what was happening.
I really liked Jane's (Mom) devotion to her catholic religion and protesting outside of women' health clinics. Jane's daughter, Lauren's chapters were a little tedious. Especially the complete chapter delegated to early 90's heavy metal music. TMI. The adoption of Mirella, the baby girl from Romania, was interesting and topical. I found Jane's rational acceptance of what occurred at the end of the book very unbelievable.
I am a pro choice woman. I appreciated the mention of Dr. George Tiller, who was slaughtered outside of a Kansas clinic several years ago. He was an extremely brave man. This added some heft to this book.
I can only recommend this book to those who really appreciate long disjointed and perhaps unnecessary paragraphs. This book took "getting into a reader's head" just a little too far I'm afraid.
I threw it in the trash where it belongs. Had I any Idea it was included in the story I would have never bought it .
The one star means nothing since I could not continue without submitting a star.