My nightmares, which took place last night, had less to do with the book in question, and more with my issues of not being challenged or recognized during my K-12 School Years. But I have to wonder whether the contents of the book disturbed me enough to trigger nightmares.
Jill Ciment is a name I am vaguely familiar with, but have never read. On the basis of this book, I am willing to give her another try, because she does write well. But the plot elements here are disturbing.
The novel is laid out like a three act play. Act One involves a trial where a twin sister, Aranca, is accused of killing her 8-month-old brother, Caleb. The sisters are both teens, and, frankly I still think Stephana, not on trial, should have been, as I still feel she was the guilty one. Act Two has two jurors, Hannah and Graham, having a torrid affair when they become sequestered for awhile. And Act Three has the whole thing crash, when Hannah admits the affair to her husband, who is 86 to her 57, and he develops leukemia, and the reader, with Hannah, has to watch him die, feeling betrayed and unloved.
Oh, boy. This last is right in Joan Didion territory, and it took all I had not to put it aside. But the writing was too good for me to dismiss it. And maybe this turned out to be the challenge I wished for in my dream. Because the unpleasantness of the husband's impending death, and its detailed outline, challenged me to keep on going in the face of such
unpleasantness.
Be careful what you wish for, darlings! My wish for Jill Ciment is that, should I pick up another one of her books, she won't go to this area, again.
Because, if she should, that book, like Jill, in the Mother Goose nursery rhyme, will, indeed go tumbling after!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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