Light from a Distant Star

August 1, 2011
In her latest, Morris (Songs in Ordinary Time) offers a timeless and timely look at small town life, as seen by wise, verbose, and intensely naïve thirteen-year-old heroine Nellie Peck. Set in the town of Springvale during the summer before Nellie begins middle school, Morris ably juggles compelling storylines and characters. The Peck family faces financial ruin: Nellie's father, busy writing a history of their town, neglects his hardware store, but refuses to sell it; her mother takes in a boarder, stripper Dolly Bedelia, to help pay the bills. Bucky Saltonstall, a new boy in town, turns out to be a cruel liar and a thief. Nellie's junkyard-owning grandfather, Charlie, has hired an ex-convict handyman, Max. When Dolly is found murdered in her apartment, suspicion quickly falls on Max, but Nellie knows that Dolly had been secretly seeing wealthy businessman Andy Cooper. No one believes Nellie's version; worse still, Cooper happens to be the potential buyer for her father's store. While supporting figures, like Nellie's father Benjamin, are well-developed, others, like Bucky and Charlie, remain one-dimensional. However, Morris' page-turner, (which evokes To Kill a Mockingbird) will satisfy her fans and send new readers searching for her earlier titles.

April 15, 2011

With her father's business in trouble and her mother now working, 13-year-old Nellie is the determined caretaker of her little brother. The adults she does encounter, like the stripper who rents an apartment at the back of the house, upend her life further. Then, a moment of violence lands Nellie in court as witness, where no one believes the awful truth she's trying to relay. As evidenced by her many novels, e.g., National Book Award nominee Vanished, Morris excels at family dramas with dark and tingly psychological twists, so I'm betting that this will be absorbingly good.

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 1, 2011
Morris' eighth novel is both an engaging coming-of-age story and a dark tale of murder and its aftermath in a small, sleepy town. Nellie Peck is 13; it is summertime, and she is in charge of her younger brother. With the family's hardware business failing, Nellie's mother has returned to work at the local salon, and Nellie's father is more interested in writing a town history than making money. Two newcomers enter Nellie's life: Max, a taciturn drifter who works in her grandfather's junkyard, and Dolly, a brash young stripper who rents the apartment behind the Peck's house. When an act of violence occurs, Nellie knows some of the scandalous details surrounding the crime but also that no one will believe her accusations. Morris skillfully traces Nellie's gradual realization that reputations are not always what they seem and that the truth must come out no matter the cost.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)

August 1, 2011

Best-selling author Morris's latest work (after The Last Secret) is intended as a multilayered family narrative complicated by murder, but it fails to deliver. Suffering a financial crisis, the Pecks are forced to sell the family hardware store and are also having problems with their tenant, Dolly Bedelia, a pole dancer at the local strip club. The first half of the book sets up the family drama but is overstuffed with secondary characters and plots. Add to that the not very believable 13-year-old protagonist, Nellie Peck, who witnesses something she shouldn't. The tension in the second half hinges on Nellie's keeping a secret that is so implausible it's like watching a contemporary horror film in which none of the characters owns a cell phone. VERDICT This is a bloated and unbelievable work, lacking in both depth and suspense. It is a tribute to Morris's writing that despite these flaws the novel moves at a brisk pace, and most readers, even those who will be frustrated by it, will finish it. Recommended with reservations for Morris's fans. [See Prepub Alert, 3/14/11.]--Pamela Mann, St. Mary's Coll. of Maryland, St. Mary's City

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.