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Entering Normal (Ballantine Reader's Circle), by Anne D. LeClaire
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In the tradition of The Good Mother and The Deep End of the Ocean, Anne D. LeClaire delivers a heartbreaking–and breathtaking–novel of two very different but equally loving mothers who face the most painful of losses and then find the courage not only to go on but to find meaning and hope in their lives.
Rose Nelson is a middle-aged woman with a broken past, a sorrow from which she cannot recover. Secretly guilty about her role in her teenaged son’s death five years ago, she has sealed herself off from life, enveloped by a grief that has slowly eaten away at her relationship with her husband.
Against her will, Rose is drawn into the world she has avoided when Opal Gates and her five-year-old son, Zack, move in next door. Determined to start an independent life for herself, twenty-year-old Opal has left her family and the father of her son in North Carolina. But when she quickly begins an affair with Tyrone Miller, a part-time mechanic and local musician, Opal unwittingly breaks the tacit rules of both her family and her new hometown.
Initially, Rose cannot bear the sight of Opal and her son. But later when Zack is injured, she instinctively lies to protect Opal from a single mistake that changes the lives of everyone involved.
Faced with a custody suit brought by Zack’s father and her own parents, Opal faces a trial in which each choice she has made will be used as ammunition in the battle to take Zack away from her.
Confronting such devastating loss and the questions it poses are at the heart of Entering Normal. How does one go on after great tragedy? What is a family? What sacrifices must a mother be willing to make for her child? And how can a good mother sometimes make bad choices?
Entering Normal is a story of family, a novel about courage, loss, risk, and betrayal. It is a story that goes to the heart of love.
From the Hardcover edition.
- Sales Rank: #3006009 in Books
- Published on: 2002-07-02
- Released on: 2002-07-02
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.25" h x .63" w x 5.50" l, .60 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 289 pages
Amazon.com Review
In Anne D. LeClaire's Entering Normal, two women are bound by the shared trials of motherhood: birth, hope, separation, and grief. Though Rose Nelson is an older woman still mourning her son, who died five years ago, and Opal Gates is a young single mother scrabbling to raise her 5-year-old son, the two women begin to cleave together.
Both move through their worlds in a dreamlike trance, only surfacing above their own self-absorption when confronted by the violence of life: infidelity, passion, jealousy, and death. Though emotionally clueless men bumble around Rose and Opal, they are never able to pierce through these women's barriers. Rose and Opal are too convinced of their own needs--Opal believes she needs no one, while Rose focuses only on her dead son. As the two begin to find each other, the reader awaits the moments of growth that allow them to see beyond themselves. As Rose entertains hope, so does the reader, "In the morning light, for one brief moment, she ... can almost believe that she has already experienced her lifetime's allotment of pain and grief." LeClaire's skill for describing human action succeeds here as well, as her characters fail and triumph with realistic probability. Alternately melodious and emotionally torturous, Almost Normal is a moving debut. --Nancy R.E. O'Brien
From Publishers Weekly
An emotional wallop comparable to that produced by Sue Miller's The Good Mother or Jane Hamilton's A Map of the World awaits readers of LeClaire's latest (after Sideshow, etc.). In the small town of Normal, Mass., Rose Nelson has never ceased grieving over the accidental death of her teenage son, Todd. Years of unremitting grief and compulsive housecleaning have dismayed and frustrated her devoted husband, Ned, who tries to lose himself in work at the filling station he owns. Rose notices a peculiar itch around a mole that could indicate cancer, but tries to dismiss it because she doesn't trust drugs or doctors. At the same time, 20-year-old Opal Gates arrives in town with her young son, Zack, in tow. On the lam from her boyfriend, Billy, and her nagging mother in New Zion, N.C., stubborn, flighty Opal has landed in Normal because that's how far exactly three full tanks of gas have taken her chance and signs are central to her life. When she rents the house next door to the Nelsons, prudent Rose observes that "girls like Opal suck trouble to them" and resolves not to get involved. Though striving for independence and ambivalent about a new romance, Opal does seem fated to attract trouble. First, Zack breaks his arm when she sneaks out to the store while he's sleeping; then Billy, with Opal's parents' help, files a custody suit. The tentative friendship that slowly develops between Opal and Rose sustains both women as they face new obstacles and old demons, and the saga of these endearing (if at times frustrating) characters will hold readers' interest right up to the bittersweet ending. Agent, Deborah Schneider.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From School Library Journal
Adult/High School-LeClaire's first novel is a poignant mixture of love, loss, compassion, guilt, tolerance, and consequences. Opal, the 20-year-old unwed mother of 5-year-old Zack, has run away from home to escape her critical mother and Zack's father. Composed of equal parts na‹vet‚, sagacity, original thinking, and love for her son, the young woman feels that she has been given a sign to flee exactly as far as three tanks of gas will take her, which is to the town of Normal, MA. There she meets Rose, who is middle-aged and reserved-the opposite of Opal-and still in deep mourning for her teenaged son killed in a car accident five years earlier. While Opal could use a dash of Rose's restraint, Rose needs to stop blaming herself and resume living. Zack's father sues for custody of the boy, merely to show Opal who is boss. She fights it and Rose steps in to help after having seen how much Opal loves the child despite her shortage of parenting skills. Opal finds a new boyfriend, lower class with a heart of gold, and is unable to resist his charms, both in and out of bed, thus threatening her custody case. Rose's husband dies suddenly of a heart attack, and the two women end up helping one another through their respective ordeals. YAs will learn much here about human nature, the lessons leavened by Opal's offbeat thinking.
Judy McAloon, Potomac Library, Prince William County, VA
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
Most helpful customer reviews
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
Loss and Renewal
By Amazon Customer
In Anne D. Leclaire's powerfully written novel, the reader enters the lives of two women who are far from normal. Opal is a young woman with a small boy who has fled from her mother, the father of her child, and her past. She moves next door to Rose who is a middle aged woman whose only child has been killed in an automobile accident. She has been grieving for 5 years, an activity that totally absorbs her. She has a loving husband who has tried to help her move on but she does not want to move on, partly because of the guilt she feels about her son's death. Opal's presence is the catalyst for change that Rose cannot ignore. This book is a page turner. From the time I began reading the first page until the end of the story, I did not want to interrupt the experience. By the way she presents Opal, Rose, and Rose's husband Ned in additional to several peripheral characters, Anne D. Leclaire reveals herself as a warm, caring, insightful person. She is the author of several previous novels that are also worth reading. I am recommending this novel to my book club and friends.
2 of 4 people found the following review helpful.
an excellent read.
By A Customer
i have recommended this book to all the avid readers i know. it is flawlessly plotted, beautifully written, and hard to put down. what more can you ask?
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful.
A Brave Mother
By A Customer
This story tells of a desperate twenty-year-old mother, Opal Gates, who has made more than her share of mistakes in her life. She accidentally had a baby, Zack, at fifteen, and after that, her life changed forever. Her mother hated her more than ever, and she discovered that she did not love the baby's father, Billy, after all. On an impulse, she decided to pack up and head north with Zack without telling of their destination to anyone. At Normal, a little country town in New York, Opal found a new life, a new work, and a new start in her life. She enjoys herself, and made friends with her neighbor, Rose. However, all of a sudden, Billy wants his son back. For five years he had not paid attention to his son's warfare, and now, he does. He, supported by Opal's mother and father, challenge her to the law. Vivian Cummings, Opal's lawyer, helps defeat the opponents, but at the end, Opal has to move back to her old home in New Zion. But she goes back with support this time, instead of being alone: Rose.
I like this book because I have never had the wrath of my parents on me. They have always loved me for my twelve years with them, and never for a moment told me I shamed them. Occasionally, when they are angry at me, I think about running away, but never did accomplish it; I'm too practical, since I know I can't stand a night without shelter or food. So it is interesting to hear about someone else running away from the world she knows well to someplace she has never been to. Furthermore, I have never heard of a teenager having so many troubles yet: I know there are accidents that involve babies, but never before the combination of babies, anger, and running away. It seems too much to happen to a teenager.
My favorite part of this story was at the courthouse. I have often thought about being a lawyer, so I like to read about such things. Lawyers, like Vivian Cummings, are so clever in making up snappy comments and defending the offender to the end. And they can make the mistakes the offender did sound mild and unimportant. To be all that, a person has to be very well trained. And very few people are, so reading about it is great.
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