Goldengrove - by Francine Prose (Paperback)

About the Book

From a "New York Times"-bestselling author comes an emotionally powerful novel about love and loss.

Book Synopsis

"With a dazzling mix of directness and metaphor, Prose captures the centrifugal and isolating force of grief. . . . "[Goldengrove is] a moving meditation on how, out of the painful passing of innocence and youth, sexuality and identity can miraculously emerge." -- Los Angeles Times

An emotionally powerful novel about adolescent love and loss from Francine Prose, the New York Times bestselling author of Reading Like a Writer and A Changed Man.

After the sudden death of her beloved older sister, thirteen-year-old Nico finds her life on New England's idyllic Mirror Lake irrevocably altered. Left alone to grope toward understanding, she falls into a seductive, dangerous relationship with her sister's boyfriend. Over one haunted summer, Nico faces that life-changing moment when children realize their parents can no longer help them as she experiences the mystery of loss and recovery. Still, for all the darkness at its heart, Goldengrove is radiant with the lightness of summer and charged by the restless sexual tension of adolescence.

From the Back Cover

After the sudden death of her beloved older sister, thirteen-year-old Nico finds her life on New England's idyllic Mirror Lake irrevocably altered. Left alone to grope toward understanding, she falls into a seductive, dangerous relationship with her sister's boyfriend. Over one haunted summer, Nico faces that life-changing moment when children realize their parents can no longer help them as she experiences the mystery of loss and recovery. Still, for all the darkness at its heart, Goldengrove is radiant with the lightness of summer and charged by the restless sexual tension of adolescence.

Review Quotes

"Francine Prose's new novel is a quiet, clear-eyed, sun-dappled eulogy to lost youth, and a youth lost. . . . [Prose is ] a keen chronicler of human emotion." - Elle
"A beautiful narrative that defines resilience as the sometimes heartbreaking act of simply living" - Redbook Magazine
"Insightful, lyrical... "Goldengrove" is beautifully and simply written...a moving portrait of the search for identity through a landscape of pain and loss." - St. Louis Post-Dispatch
"With perfect pitch and no trace of sentimentality, Prose . . . lands on the precise emotional key for this novel . . . allowing humor and compassion to seep through the cracks of an otherwise dark tale." - San Francisco Chronicle
"Prose is most astute with her portrayal of the stormy currents of adolescent grief...It's also charged with an . . . element of eroticism, and here Prose is at her very best. . . . Nico's voice, with its quirky mix of insight and gullibility, will stick in adults' minds, and many younger readers will recognize that voice as their own." - Washington Post Book World
"Prose's consistently complex and incisive narratives exhibit uncommon grace and authority, making each new publication an occasion for welcome. Goldengrove is no exception, offering readers the privilege of witnessing one girl's journey to womanhood through the prism of profound loss, a young soul on its way to becoming older, and wise." - Boston Globe
"Prose creates characters with real flaws that make the reader both love and hate them. It is easy to put oneself in the position of any of the players..." - Deseret Morning News
"Prose's skillful rendering of the human ability to accept hard truths and move on is a poignant lesson for us all." - Miami Herald
"At a time when too many writers, readers and publishers seem afraid of lyricism--as if people who read don't crave lovely writing--Prose forges the other way. Time and again in Goldengrove, a poetic image . . . illuminates a moment. . . . It's a rare thing: a book to read for its metaphors and similes. Read it, too, for its turn from danger to light, from despair to a hard-won contentment." - Philadelphia Inquirer
"A poignant account of growing up amid sorrow...a tender and moving story of adolescent love." - Hartford Courant
"A page-turner, thanks to its wholly identifiable, and perfectly flawed, young heroine. A-" - Entertainment Weekly
"Prose . . . examines lovingly the steps by which life reasserts itself in a slow dance of grief, loneliness, despair and, finally, a willingness to try again. Arguably, Goldengrove is her best book yet." - Seattle Times
"Arguably, "Goldengrove" is her best book yet." - Seattle Times
"Prose holds up a mirror to grief and family life we can't look away from, revealing their truths on page after page, in beautifully crafted writing." - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
"With a dazzling mix of directness and metaphor, Prose captures the centrifugal and isolating force of grief. . . . "[Goldengrove is] a moving meditation on how, out of the painful passing of innocence and youth, sexuality and identity can miraculously emerge." - Los Angeles Times
"With a dazzling mix of directness and metaphor, Prose captures the centrifugal and isolating force of grief...Prose exquisitely renders her characters' grief and bafflement." - Los Angeles Times
"Ms. Prose is perceptive. . . . Her modest-sounding book turns out to be beautifully wrought.... and yields an unexpectedly rich, tart, eye-opening sense of Nico's world." - New York Times
"An exploration of the fragility of adolescent identity and the perilous undertow of grief" - O magazine
"Prose locates the life force that gives her narrator the quirky, irreverent but undeniable sound of a survivor. . . . Prose is tremendously skilled." - Chicago Tribune
"Beautifully crafted...perhaps her most emotionally satisfying novel." - Christian Science Monitor
"...emotionally authentic...a ravishing novel of the mystery of death and life's assertion." - Booklist (starred review)
"Deeply touching and absorbing..." - Publishers Weekly