The Romantic

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When she is nine-years-old, Louise Kirk’s mother disappears, leaving a note that reads only--and incorrectly--"Louise knows how to work the washing machine." It is not long before a strange couple and their adopted son, Abel, move in across the street. Louise quickly grows close with the exotic Mrs. Richter, but saves her stronger, more lasting affections for Mrs. Richter’s intelligent son. From this childhood friendship evolves a love that will bind Louise and Abel forever, and though Abel moves away and Louise matures into adulthood, her attachment grows dangerously, fiercely fixed.From Publishers WeeklyIn her previous novels (The White Bone; Mr. Sandman; etc), Gowdy's imagination blazed new trails, melding bizarre characters into memorable situations. This novel is as beautifully written as its predecessors, but more traditional than the Canadian writer's usual fiction. She examines the mysteries of love and its absence in two damaged children whose adult lives remain shadowed by their early experiences. In the early 1960s in Toronto, when she is 10, narrator Louise Kirk falls in love with a new neighbor boy named Abelard, the adopted son of the Richter family. Louise's mother, a former beauty queen who said things like, "Nobody would believe you're my daughter," abandoned Louise and her passive father a year ago, and Louise prays that the Richters will adopt her, too. Louise has oceans of love to lavish and focuses all her psychic and emotional energy on Abel, who can't bear the weight of it because he is more fragile than she is. She remains obsessed with Abel even after his family moves away, and on the night he briefly reappears, when she is in high school, she conceives his child. But the curious, tender boy she knew has become an alcoholic, taking refuge in Rimbaud and determined to end his life. The narrative moves back and forth in time, spinning out the story of the doomed relationship. Each of the characters, even minor ones, has a unique voice and a vivid, quirky personality. Louise's need to have Abel create the world for her resonates with unfulfilled passion. In reining in her imagination to the limits of a conventional love story, Gowdy has produced her most haunting and sensitive novel to date.Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. From BooklistLouise Kirk has loved Abel Richter since they were children, but it was his mother who drew her affection first. At 10, a year after Louise's own mother left her and her father, the Richters, an older couple with an adopted son, move in next door. Louise watches Mrs. Richter longingly from a distance, wishing she would adopt her as well. Louise befriends Abel in order to get to Mrs. Richter, but her love soon transfers to the solitary, sensitive boy. The connection between the two flourishes, and Louise never stops thinking about Abel, even when he moves away. It is his return, when they meet at a high-school party, that marks the beginning of their adult relationship--an attachment Louise thinks will be permanent, especially when she discovers she is pregnant. But her love for Abel blinds her to his failings. Moving seamlessly between Louise's childhood, her teen years, and her present, this novel is a sad, beautiful examination of a lonely woman and her attempts to find unconditional, unwavering love. Kristine HuntleyCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved