From Publishers Weekly
Poignant and atmospheric, this book honors the promise of Lucid Stars , Barrett's well-received first novel. Charismatic Reba Dwyer, flanked and buttressed by brother Hank, a shy, late bloomer, sister Tonia, who has Down's Syndrome, and best friend Luke Wyatt, hangs out in meager Massachusetts hill country until she meets Jessie Thayer, a girl with framed pictures on her walls, matching linens and dotted-swiss bedspreads. Ignoring past alliances, Reba joins Jessie in disreputable escapades and, when the friendship flounders, escapes to urban respectability. But her fellow conservatory students find Reba oddly feral, so, when she is summoned home because her father has left, Reba embraces her heritage, becomes pregnant, marries Luke, and has shallow affairs to distract herself from the fact that, like her father, who absorbs life as sounds, she must come to terms with inner music. Elegant, accessible writing transforms Reba's potentially trite passage from self-denial to self-acceptance into fine reading. First serial to Mademoiselle. Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
"Just sing the melody, Reba had said. I'll pick up the harmony. But he couldn't sing." So there will be neither melody nor harmony in her marriage with Luke, her best friend from childhood. Reba, who hears the wind sing in A-minor chords and the radiator hum in E, cannot hear the devotion or pain in the voice of her husband. Beginning with a marvelous evocation of autumn in New England and an eccentric, musical family, the book segues into just another story about a self-centered, cheating wife. Even her host of whimsical, lovable relatives cannot quite save Reba--or the book. What a disappointment, especially after Barrett's successful debut with Lucid Stars ( LJ 10/1/89).- Maurice Taylor, Brunswick Cty. Lib., Southport, N.C.Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

ANNOTATION

To coincide with the release of her new novel The Middle Kingdom, here is Barrett's second novel available in paperback. Hailed as "remarkably touching" (The Los Angeles Times), this is a portrait of people struggling to make sense of their lives in the rural hills of western Massachusettes.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Andrea Barrett creates a wonderful portrait of a family struggling to make sense of their lives in western Massachusetts. When childhood sweethearts Reba Dwyer and Luke Wyatt marry, they expect no surprises. But now that Luke is her husband, discord Reba's life. An utterly absorbing, moving story of a couple and the eccentric constellation of loved ones swirling around them.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Poignant and atmospheric, this book honors the promise of Lucid Stars , Barrett's well-received first novel. Charismatic Reba Dwyer, flanked and buttressed by brother Hank, a shy, late bloomer, sister Tonia, who has Down's Syndrome, and best friend Luke Wyatt, hangs out in meager Massachusetts hill country until she meets Jessie Thayer, a girl with framed pictures on her walls, matching linens and dotted-swiss bedspreads. Ignoring past alliances, Reba joins Jessie in disreputable escapades and, when the friendship flounders, escapes to urban respectability. But her fellow conservatory students find Reba oddly feral, so, when she is summoned home because her father has left, Reba embraces her heritage, becomes pregnant, marries Luke, and has shallow affairs to distract herself from the fact that, like her father, who absorbs life as sounds, she must come to terms with inner music. Elegant, accessible writing transforms Reba's potentially trite passage from self-denial to self-acceptance into fine reading. First serial to Mademoiselle. (Oct.)

Library Journal

``Just sing the melody, Reba had said. I'll pick up the harmony. But he couldn't sing.'' So there will be neither melody nor harmony in her marriage with Luke, her best friend from childhood. Reba, who hears the wind sing in A-minor chords and the radiator hum in E, cannot hear the devotion or pain in the voice of her husband. Beginning with a marvelous evocation of autumn in New England and an eccentric, musical family, the book segues into just another story about a self-centered, cheating wife. Even her host of whimsical, lovable relatives cannot quite save Reba--or the book. What a disappointment, especially after Barrett's successful debut with Lucid Stars ( LJ 10/1/89).-- Maurice Taylor, Brunswick Cty. Lib., Southport, N.C.

Carolyn See