How do you recover the past when it was never yours to lose?
Delia Hopkins has led a charmed life. Raised in rural New Hampshire by her beloved, widowed father, she now has a young daughter, a handsome fiance, and her own search-and-rescue bloodhound, which she uses to find missing persons. But as Delia plans her wedding, she is plagued by flashbacks of a life she can't recall...until a policeman knocks on her door, revealing a secret about herself that changes the world as she knows it -- and threatens to jeopardize her future. With Vanishing Acts, Jodi Picoult explores how life -- as we know it -- might not turn out the way we imagined; how the people we've loved and trusted can suddenly change before our very eyes; how the memory we thought had vanished could return as a threat. Once again, Picoult handles an astonishing and timely topic with under-standing, insight, and compassion.
What better title than Vanishing Acts to describe a search-and-rescue worker who turns out to be a missing person herself, as well as the daughter of an amateur magician who makes people disappear? Reviewers praise Picoult (My Sister’s Keeper *1/2 July/Aug 2004) for her cleverness and her abilities as a storyteller, but her tendency to hang her narratives on Issues-with-a-capital-I has limited appeal. Her 12th novel seems particularly overcrowded with themes and subplots addressing the nature of identity, parental and platonic love, Native American mysticism, prison conditions, alcoholism, memory, and much more. The story is told in first-person narratives presented in alternating chapters by the book’s five main characters, but this contrivance quickly wears thin. All in all, Vanishing Acts is a somewhat muddled effort from the best-selling author.
Description:
How do you recover the past when it was never yours to lose?
Delia Hopkins has led a charmed life. Raised in rural New Hampshire by her beloved, widowed father, she now has a young daughter, a handsome fiance, and her own search-and-rescue bloodhound, which she uses to find missing persons. But as Delia plans her wedding, she is plagued by flashbacks of a life she can't recall...until a policeman knocks on her door, revealing a secret about herself that changes the world as she knows it -- and threatens to jeopardize her future. With Vanishing Acts, Jodi Picoult explores how life -- as we know it -- might not turn out the way we imagined; how the people we've loved and trusted can suddenly change before our very eyes; how the memory we thought had vanished could return as a threat. Once again, Picoult handles an astonishing and timely topic with under-standing, insight, and compassion.
**
From Publishers Weekly
Each of the five narrators in this excellent audiobook speaks intimately to the listener, capitalizing on the emotional complexity of Picoult's heart-wrenching tale. Delia Hopkins, read with simple grace by Gibson, immediately seizes the listener's attention when she relates how, on an ordinary day in smalltown New Hampshire, her beloved father, Andrew, is arrested for having kidnapped her, 28 years earlier, from the mother she long thought was dead. Delia's fiancé, Eric, and her best friend, Fitz (both of whom are given appropriately cultured New England accents), add dimension to this multifaceted exploration of love and identity, but Delia's parents, read by Jenner and Washington, offer the most noteworthy performances. Jenner successfully conveys the rainbow of personalities Andrew encounters while being held in an Arizona jail. Washington, meanwhile, embodies Delia's darkly tragic mother, who emerges as both a gentle healer with a dulcet Southwestern accent and a mother who was never there for her young child. Simultaneous release with the Atria hardcover (Forecasts, Feb. 7). (Mar.)
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From Bookmarks Magazine
What better title than Vanishing Acts to describe a search-and-rescue worker who turns out to be a missing person herself, as well as the daughter of an amateur magician who makes people disappear? Reviewers praise Picoult (My Sister’s Keeper *1/2 July/Aug 2004) for her cleverness and her abilities as a storyteller, but her tendency to hang her narratives on Issues-with-a-capital-I has limited appeal. Her 12th novel seems particularly overcrowded with themes and subplots addressing the nature of identity, parental and platonic love, Native American mysticism, prison conditions, alcoholism, memory, and much more. The story is told in first-person narratives presented in alternating chapters by the book’s five main characters, but this contrivance quickly wears thin. All in all, Vanishing Acts is a somewhat muddled effort from the best-selling author.
Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.