Helpless
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Price:
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$32.95
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On Sale:
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15/02/2007
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Formats:
Hardcover
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Helpless is Barbara Gowdy’s brilliant new novel, a
provocative, gripping story of an unthinkable act and a mother’s heroic love for
her child.
Rachel is an uncommonly beautiful young girl. With her tawny
skin, pale blue eyes and chromium-blond hair, she is a cherished gift to her
mother, Celia. Celia is a single parent holding down two jobs. All too aware of
her own precarious equilibrium, she worries about Rachel’s innocent longing for
her unknown father.
When a blackout plunges the city into darkness and confusion,
Rachel is snatched away. Celia, numb with terror and guilt about the choices she
has made, confronts the reality of every mother’s worst nightmare. The media
coverage is tremendous. Closely monitoring it is Ron, a small-appliance
repairman with a rare collection of vintage vacuums in his basement. Though
Rachel is a stranger to him, he feels oddly connected to her, as though she is
his responsibility. His feelings for her are, at once, tender, misguided and
chillingly possessive.
Tapping into the fear and tension just below the surface of
contemporary city life, Gowdy’s clear-eyed prose artfully urges us to consider
what we dare not look at too closely. With her uncanny ability to lay bare our
common soul and to fearlessly explore the intricate complexities of love, Gowdy
has created a masterful novel.
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Author Extras
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Critical Praise for
Helpless
"An assured, perceptive, deftly delivered story."
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Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"[Helpless] is all the more chilling for its calm, understated reporting…. A nail-biting tale of suspense."
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Library Journal (starred review)
"A genuinely suspenseful read, gripping to the last page.... The story... is a powerful one, with all its ironies, a fiction that arouses fear and pity and resolves these wrenching emotions in a truthful way."
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Toronto Star
"Gowdy takes someone we would like to contain in a box marked "monster" and brings him too close to dismiss so conveniently.... She also creates a book that stands out among an already unique and powerful body of work."
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Times Colonist (Victoria)
"A page turner that finds tension not in the obvious question, but in more personal ones."
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The New York Times
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If elephants could tell just one story, it would be the story of Mud, a young elephant cow orphaned at birth and blessed with visionary powers. Mud’s life on the African plain is changed forever when she and her adopted family are forced by prolonged drought to linger at one of the few remaining...
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Helpless
Celia is the single mother of an exceptionally beautiful child: nine-year-old Rachel. All too aware of the precarious balance of the life she has built for the two of them, Celia worries about her daughter’s longing for the father she has never met. When Rachel disappears one night during a...
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