Laura Harrington's Blog, page 5
July 5, 2011
"I loved this book the way I loved To Kill A Mockingbird…"
By Charlotte Gordon
June 5, 2011
Move over, Scout. Meet smart, plucky, funny Alice Bliss. Her dad has gone to Iraq and she is left home with her mom and little sister and somehow has to go on living. She has her first kiss, learns to drive, goes to dances, plants a vegetable garden — all while her dad is fighting in the war. She is also the title character in Laura Harrington's new novel, Alice Bliss, a book I read cover to cover (really) snuffling and laughing and itching for everyone I know to read it so we can talk about it. I loved this book the way I loved To Kill A Mockingbird, which is one of the first books I remember agreeing with a teacher about. We both liked it– every word of it — a miracle, since usually, the books we were assigned in school were books I could not finish, or which bored me, or which depressed me. You know the ones: A Separate Peace, Animal Farm, Lord of the Flies, Lord Jim, Huck Finn (yes, I admit it — I did not like it), things by Ray Bradbury and Kurt Vonnegut. The only excuse I have is that not one of these very fine books had much to do with being a 13/14/ or 15 year old girl and I did not have enough imagination,or, more accurately, I had not yet cultivated and strengthened my imagination enough to make the jump into being Huck or a boarding school boy. I did sort of like Lord of the Flies, if one can like Lord of the Flies, but only because it reminded me of my school — the hatred and cruelty that ruled the hallways. And I, of course, was Piggy. Looking back, I don't think it is a coincidence that all of these books were written by men about boys. What I wish is that Alice Bliss was around then. This is the sort of book that would have helped me understand myself more and understand my world more fully, just as it did when I read it last month. I think this is because the author lets us inside the heads of the characters, no matter how old they are, or what sex they are. This means the 48 year old reader is reminded of being 15 and the 15 year old reader is allowed a glimpse into the lives of the middle aged and elderly. And this is why I think this book is going to be a classic, assigned in schools, read in book clubs and colleges and devoured by middle aged men, women, girls, boys — in the same way that To Kill A Mockingbird appeals to all ages, all sexes. I urge all of you to read this book, give it to your friends. Buy it for Father's Day. Because, although the title character is a girl, struggling to come of age, the novel is also about motherhood, fatherhood, being a friend, being a grandmother, an uncle — the list could go on and on. I guess the book is about all of these things, not to mention the tragedy of war.
Read more of Charlotte Gordon's reviews @ her blog: chargord.wordpress.com/
July 1, 2011
"This is one of those books that changes your life forever …"
Posted by Danielle Smith @ ChicklitReviews July 1, 2011
5 out of 5 stars
"For Alice Bliss fifteen was supposed to be a time of firsts; first driving lesson, first date, first kiss and on and on. More importantly though, this was a time of firsts she was supposed to be sharing with her father, but when his National Guard troop is deployed to Iraq Alice's world spins out of control. Her life shifts from carefree teen to the responsible "adult" in the home with the pit in her heart opening wider as the days pass. As time continues Alice turns to the one person besides her father who has always been there, her childhood friend Henry. Alice Bliss is a story of the change, hope and love that comes with war and it's causalities both at home & abroad.
This is one of those books that changes your life forever, at least for me it does. I'm not sure I remember ever being so completely emotionally connected to a character the way I was connected to Alice Bliss and the odd thing about that is we have close to nothing in common. Coming from a family that stayed as far away from involvement in wars and fighting as possible, I have next to no understanding of the impact it can have on a family and an individual. Sure, I've seen movies, watched the news and had the occasional friend who had a family member at war, but it's something entirely different to experience it first hand. Through her storytelling, Laura Harrington has opened my eyes to the strength and power of these unbelievable families and the sacrifice they make for all of us."
Read the complete review at Chicklitreviews.com
June 29, 2011
****Alice Bliss is a "People Pick" with 4 out of 4 Stars ****
Reviewed by Sue Corbett, People magazine, July 4, 2011
Fifteen-year-old Alice is at odds with her mother, annoyed by her whip-smart sister and close to her father, Matt, who plants a garden with her each spring. Then Matt's Army Reserve unit is activated for duty in Iraq. Bereft, Alice wears an unwashed shirt of her dad's for weeks, trying to keep his memory close. Though the specter of sorrow that falls over the story from the beginning never recedes, the prominent emotion is love. Every child should have a father she adores this much; readers may feel inadequate to Matt, who promises to come home but, just in case, leaves Alice a cache of letters with labels like "the moment you realize you want this boy to kiss you" and "the moment you realize you're more like your mother than you want to be." Harrington's first novel makes a powerful statement against the war without pointing fingers. There are thousands of American kids like Alice, facing down their teen years with a parent gone to war. Her story is harrowing and heartbreaking, but it reads like truth.
June 22, 2011
"It's a very fine book, and if rips your heart out, that's not a bad thing."
Published: Jun 16, 2011
Category: Fiction
Tell me you wouldn't react as I did.
The name of the novel is "Alice Bliss." That is, not surprisingly, the name of the 14-year-old main character, who lives with her parents and younger sister in a lovely town in upstate New York. And then, just before the Surge, her father's National Guard unit is called up, and off he goes to Iraq.
Alice Bliss. Think she gets to keep that bliss? Really? You'd lay money down on that?
Although "Alice Bliss" is my favorite length for a book — short — you're damn right I did not want to read this novel. But the Viking publicist wouldn't stop working me. And then the author e-mailed me on another topic entirely. And so, riddled with guilt, I picked it up.
Here's how it starts:
This is the first time Alice has been allowed to walk back to their campsite from the Kelp Shed alone. She is fourteen, barefoot, her sneakers tied together by the laces and slung across her shoulder so she can feel the soft sandy dust of the single track road between her toes. Her sister Ellie fell asleep halfway through the square dance, dropping from hyper excitement to unconscious in a flash. Her father carries Ellie draped over his shoulder and casually, or so it seems, her mother says, "Come home when the dance is done."
In form, in style, this is everything that drives me nuts: leisurely, traditional storytelling, lovingly detailed, with characters as corny as Kansas.
I'm a big believer in dropping books that don't grab me right off into the Goodwill bag a foot from my desk. But I didn't. I read on to discover that Matt Bliss — Alice's father — has a dream of a life. He likes to say that he "escaped from his career and got himself a job." So he's a carpenter, a Little League coach, a pitcher for a local softball team. And a gardener. "Alice helps. They grow the best corn and the best tomatoes in town."
Dreadful stuff. And still I kept on reading. All too soon, Matt has to leave:
Outside the back window Alice can see the outlines of the garden, some of the furrows visible under the snow, stretching away in long thin rows. She can't imagine doing the garden without her dad. It's his thing; she's always thought of herself as his assistant at best. She can't imagine doing anything without her dad and she starts to feel like she can't breathe. And then she looks at him. Just looks at him as he watches the fire with muffin crumbs on his lap.
'I'll write to you.'
'I know, sweetheart.'
'Every day.'"
What happens next? Mine to know, yours to find out. But the key to the book, I think, is this: With her father gone, Alice comes alive. With that, I surrendered to this emotion-grinder of a book. And I suggest that you do the same.
This is Laura Harrington's first novel. But she's been a playwright, lyricist and librettist — writing that requires a keen sense of structure — and she has a drummer's sense of rhythm and silence. Domestic life. Social life. Inner life. Harrington hits all the markers.
Even more, though, Harrington is old enough to remember a time when men went off to war and everybody noticed. Her father was a WWII navigator/bombardier stationed in France. Her brother loaded body bags in Vietnam. Iraq, as she notes and as we have painfully learned, is different in every possible way — it's an enterprise so criminal at its core that we can't stand to look at it. So we don't.
You won't see Iraq in these pages. Laura Harrington is too smart to go there. She stays with the people left behind, with home fires that burn dimly. Her book, in the end, really isn't about this war. It's about kids and fathers, about growing up with decent values and then being shaken hard and having to figure it out from there. It's a very fine book, and if rips your heart out, that's not a bad thing.
Read more of Jesse Kornbluth's reviews @: headbutler.com
A Review from Jesse Kornbluth @ Head Butler: June 16, 2011
Laura Harrington
By JESSE KORNBLUTH
Published: Jun 16, 2011
Category: Fiction
Tell me you wouldn't react as I did.
The name of the novel is "Alice Bliss." That is, not surprisingly, the name of the 14-year-old main character, who lives with her parents and younger sister in a lovely town in upstate New York. And then, just before the Surge, her father's National Guard unit is called up, and off he goes to Iraq.
Alice Bliss. Think she gets to keep that bliss? Really? You'd lay money down on that?
Although "Alice Bliss" is my favorite length for a book — short — you're damn right I did not want to read this novel. But the Viking publicist wouldn't stop working me. And then the author e-mailed me on another topic entirely. And so, riddled with guilt, I picked it up.
Here's how it starts:
This is the first time Alice has been allowed to walk back to their campsite from the Kelp Shed alone. She is fourteen, barefoot, her sneakers tied together by the laces and slung across her shoulder so she can feel the soft sandy dust of the single track road between her toes. Her sister Ellie fell asleep halfway through the square dance, dropping from hyper excitement to unconscious in a flash. Her father carries Ellie draped over his shoulder and casually, or so it seems, her mother says, "Come home when the dance is done."
In form, in style, this is everything that drives me nuts: leisurely, traditional storytelling, lovingly detailed, with characters as corny as Kansas.
I'm a big believer in dropping books that don't grab me right off into the Goodwill bag a foot from my desk. But I didn't. I read on to discover that Matt Bliss — Alice's father — has a dream of a life. He likes to say that he "escaped from his career and got himself a job." So he's a carpenter, a Little League coach, a pitcher for a local softball team. And a gardener. "Alice helps. They grow the best corn and the best tomatoes in town."
Dreadful stuff. And still I kept on reading. All too soon, Matt has to leave:
Outside the back window Alice can see the outlines of the garden, some of the furrows visible under the snow, stretching away in long thin rows. She can't imagine doing the garden without her dad. It's his thing; she's always thought of herself as his assistant at best. She can't imagine doing anything without her dad and she starts to feel like she can't breathe. And then she looks at him. Just looks at him as he watches the fire with muffin crumbs on his lap.
'I'll write to you.'
'I know, sweetheart.'
'Every day.'"
What happens next? Mine to know, yours to find out. But the key to the book, I think, is this: With her father gone, Alice comes alive. With that, I surrendered to this emotion-grinder of a book. And I suggest that you do the same.
This is Laura Harrington's first novel. But she's been a playwright, lyricist and librettist — writing that requires a keen sense of structure — and she has a drummer's sense of rhythm and silence. Domestic life. Social life. Inner life. Harrington hits all the markers.
Even more, though, Harrington is old enough to remember a time when men went off to war and everybody noticed. Her father was a WWII navigator/bombardier stationed in France. Her brother loaded body bags in Vietnam. Iraq, as she notes and as we have painfully learned, is different in every possible way — it's an enterprise so criminal at its core that we can't stand to look at it. So we don't.
You won't see Iraq in these pages. Laura Harrington is too smart to go there. She stays with the people left behind, with home fires that burn dimly. Her book, in the end, really isn't about this war. It's about kids and fathers, about growing up with decent values and then being shaken hard and having to figure it out from there. It's a very fine book, and if rips your heart out, that's not a bad thing.
5 out of 5 Stars: "… one of my favorite teenage protagonists."
Title: Alice Bliss
Author: Laura Harrington
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Publisher: Pamela Dorman Books
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Source: Review copy from the publisher
First line: This is the first time Alice has been allowed to walk back to their campsite from the Kelp Shed alone.
Being a teenage girl, dealing with everything that adolescence, first love, and high school bring, is hard enough – but imagine doing it while worrying about your father, who is serving in Iraq. Alice Bliss adores her father, and is devastated when he leaves for active duty. She tries to hold things together at home, caring for her younger sister, Ellie, while her mother disappears inside her anxiety and grief. With the help of her uncle Eddie, her grandmother, and her best friend, Henry, Alice comes of age while her father is gone.
The novel Alice Bliss began as a one-act, one-woman musical by author and playwright Laura Harrington. When I heard that, I was intrigued to see how the story would transfer into novel form. When I was a theater major, I read a ton of plays, and the experience of reading a play is very different than reading a novel. Other than a few stage directions and brief character descriptions, a script is all dialogue. The world of the play is all up to your imagination. When I started readingAlice Bliss , I expected it to be short on description and setting. I was very wrong.
Laura Harrington is a fantastic storyteller who writes description, setting, and character beautifully – and her dialogue is as good as you would expect from a playwright. As I read, Alice quickly became one of my favorite teenage protagonists – her fierce love of her father allows the reader to come to know Matt as well as if he was present for the entire book, when, in reality, he deploys very close to the beginning of the story. The father-daughter relationship between Matt and Alice is lovely to experience. It was such a joy to witness Alice growing and maturing, trying to come to terms with her father's absence. She has all the normal experiences of her age: learning to drive, having her first kiss, discovering who she is – but she is doing it while trying to hold her family together.
While this is very much Alice's story, the other characters are as fully realized as she is. The book isn't written in first person, so we get to know each of the characters through their interior monologue. The blossoming of the relationship between Alice and her best friend, Henry, was one of the most perfect things about this book. If only every young girl who is missing her father had a Henry in her life! Harrington also does a brilliant job of exploring the prickly relationship that exists between a teenage girl and her mother. Alice needs her mother, Angie, but doesn't want to. Angie becomes so embroiled in her own anxiety and grief – and anger at Matt for leaving her – that she doesn't have any emotional strength left to try to understand what Alice is dealing with. As I read, I found myself getting very frustrated with Angie, while at the same time feeling desperately sorry for her. It is truly a testament to Harrington's writing that I came to care about all of these characters so very deeply.
Alice Bliss is such a timely book. As I read, I couldn't help but think about all the girls – and boys – here in the US who are worrying for their mothers and fathers in the military. They will need stories to read about people like them, and I believe Alice's story is an important one. Highly recommended.
Read more of Carrie's reviews at her blog: booksandmovies.colvilleblogger.com
Book Review by Carrie @ Books and Movies: June 20, 2011
Posted on June 20, 2011 by CarrieK
Title: Alice Bliss
Author: Laura Harrington
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Publisher: Pamela Dorman Books
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Source: Review copy from the publisher
First line: This is the first time Alice has been allowed to walk back to their campsite from the Kelp Shed alone.
Being a teenage girl, dealing with everything that adolescence, first love, and high school bring, is hard enough – but imagine doing it while worrying about your father, who is serving in Iraq. Alice Bliss adores her father, and is devastated when he leaves for active duty. She tries to hold things together at home, caring for her younger sister, Ellie, while her mother disappears inside her anxiety and grief. With the help of her uncle Eddie, her grandmother, and her best friend, Henry, Alice comes of age while her father is gone.
The novel Alice Bliss began as a one-act, one-woman musical by author and playwright Laura Harrington. When I heard that, I was intrigued to see how the story would transfer into novel form. When I was a theater major, I read a ton of plays, and the experience of reading a play is very different than reading a novel. Other than a few stage directions and brief character descriptions, a script is all dialogue. The world of the play is all up to your imagination. When I started readingAlice Bliss , I expected it to be short on description and setting. I was very wrong.
Laura Harrington is a fantastic storyteller who writes description, setting, and character beautifully – and her dialogue is as good as you would expect from a playwright. As I read, Alice quickly became one of my favorite teenage protagonists – her fierce love of her father allows the reader to come to know Matt as well as if he was present for the entire book, when, in reality, he deploys very close to the beginning of the story. The father-daughter relationship between Matt and Alice is lovely to experience. It was such a joy to witness Alice growing and maturing, trying to come to terms with her father's absence. She has all the normal experiences of her age: learning to drive, having her first kiss, discovering who she is – but she is doing it while trying to hold her family together.
While this is very much Alice's story, the other characters are as fully realized as she is. The book isn't written in first person, so we get to know each of the characters through their interior monologue. The blossoming of the relationship between Alice and her best friend, Henry, was one of the most perfect things about this book. If only every young girl who is missing her father had a Henry in her life! Harrington also does a brilliant job of exploring the prickly relationship that exists between a teenage girl and her mother. Alice needs her mother, Angie, but doesn't want to. Angie becomes so embroiled in her own anxiety and grief – and anger at Matt for leaving her – that she doesn't have any emotional strength left to try to understand what Alice is dealing with. As I read, I found myself getting very frustrated with Angie, while at the same time feeling desperately sorry for her. It is truly a testament to Harrington's writing that I came to care about all of these characters so very deeply.
Alice Bliss is such a timely book. As I read, I couldn't help but think about all the girls – and boys – here in the US who are worrying for their mothers and fathers in the military. They will need stories to read about people like them, and I believe Alice's story is an important one. Highly recommended.
"If I went by stars, I'd give it twelve."
By Pop Culture Nerd, June 15, 2011
As I started this review, I wished I had a rating system in place to adequately express how special Laura Harrington's Alice Bliss is. If I went by stars, I'd give it twelve. If I used thumbs to express approval, I'd put up all my fingers, too.
Fifteen-year-old Alice is devastated when her Army Reservist father, Matt, is shipped out to Iraq. She keeps herself busy by joining the track team, helping her mother take care of her 8-year-old sister, Ellie, and tending to the vegetable garden Alice plants with her father every year. She also starts having confusing feelings about Henry, the boy she's been best friends with since they were little kids. In Matt's absence, Alice leaves childhood behind and grows into a young woman who's every bit her father's daughter.
This book wrecked me. I cannot remember the last time I cried while reading, let alone shed enough tears to water Alice and Matt's crop. But it wasn't because Harrington tried to yank on my heartstrings; her style is unsentimental and not without levity. No, I was moved by the different ways the family members long for and honor Matt, by their determination to make him proud by not falling apart. The beauty of Harrington's writing is also exemplified by what she leaves out, such as what's really being said in this early scene, when Matt goes over the plan for the garden with Alice so she can take care of it while he's gone:
"You don't like it," he says.
"I liked it just fine last year. I thought last year was perfect."
"No changes? No building on our successes and learning from our failures?"
"We didn't have any failures."
"Just way too much yellow squash."
"Okay. Let's take out half the yellow squash."
"But keep the corn?"
"Yes…Just like last year," Alice says, slowly and carefully.
"Because…?"
"Because I want it to be the same."
The story's poignancy also doesn't come from Alice being a coyingly sweet Daddy's girl. She's strong-willed, often locking horns with her mom and sometimes losing her patience with Ellie, another bright creation of Harrington's.
In fact, all the characters are memorable and fully dimensional, even those who appear in only one or two scenes. Though he's not around for most of the book, Matt's presence looms large. Angie, Alice's mom, struggles with parental duties after he leaves but she didn't sign up to do it alone. They all feel like real people, and that's what resonated the most. This may be fiction but we know there are real military families like Alice's everywhere, striving to go on with life after their loved ones go off to war, despite feeling as if they'd been hit by emotional IEDs.
Nerd verdict: Deeply moving Bliss
Read more @ www.popculturenerd.com
Review from Pop Culture Nerd, Hollywood: June 15, 2011
Submitted by Pop Culture Nerd on June 15, 2011
As I started this review, I wished I had a rating system in place to adequately express how special Laura Harrington's Alice Bliss is. If I went by stars, I'd give it twelve. If I used thumbs to express approval, I'd put up all my fingers, too.
Fifteen-year-old Alice is devastated when her Army Reservist father, Matt, is shipped out to Iraq. She keeps herself busy by joining the track team, helping her mother take care of her 8-year-old sister, Ellie, and tending to the vegetable garden Alice plants with her father every year. She also starts having confusing feelings about Henry, the boy she's been best friends with since they were little kids. In Matt's absence, Alice leaves childhood behind and grows into a young woman who's every bit her father's daughter.
This book wrecked me. I cannot remember the last time I cried while reading, let alone shed enough tears to water Alice and Matt's crop. But it wasn't because Harrington tried to yank on my heartstrings; her style is unsentimental and not without levity. No, I was moved by the different ways the family members long for and honor Matt, by their determination to make him proud by not falling apart. The beauty of Harrington's writing is also exemplified by what she leaves out, such as what's really being said in this early scene, when Matt goes over the plan for the garden with Alice so she can take care of it while he's gone:
"You don't like it," he says.
"I liked it just fine last year. I thought last year was perfect."
"No changes? No building on our successes and learning from our failures?"
"We didn't have any failures."
"Just way too much yellow squash."
"Okay. Let's take out half the yellow squash."
"But keep the corn?"
"Yes…Just like last year," Alice says, slowly and carefully.
"Because…?"
"Because I want it to be the same."
The story's poignancy also doesn't come from Alice being a coyingly sweet Daddy's girl. She's strong-willed, often locking horns with her mom and sometimes losing her patience with Ellie, another bright creation of Harrington's.
In fact, all the characters are memorable and fully dimensional, even those who appear in only one or two scenes. Though he's not around for most of the book, Matt's presence looms large. Angie, Alice's mom, struggles with parental duties after he leaves but she didn't sign up to do it alone. They all feel like real people, and that's what resonated the most. This may be fiction but we know there are real military families like Alice's everywhere, striving to go on with life after their loved ones go off to war, despite feeling as if they'd been hit by emotional IEDs.
Nerd verdict: Deeply moving Bliss
"Alice Bliss is one of those rare gems of a read that will remain with the reader for a long long time to come."
ALICE BLISS
by Laura Harrington
Pamela Dorman Books (Viking) – June 2011
320 pages; $25.95
"Does everyone have a secret life, she wonders? Is everyone carrying an impossible, unbearable secret?" -Alice Bliss
The Bliss family is your typical American family. Mom, Dad and two daughters; Alice 15, and Ellie, a precocious 8, living in upstate New York. The story begins when the family learns that Matt Bliss, a New York Army Reservist, is being called to active duty to fight in Iraq. Emotions and fear understandably take hold, and the reader observers each family member deal with the situation in their unique way.
Once Matt ships off, the family tries to maintain some sense of normality. But, as hard as they try, the Bliss family finds themselves just going through the daily motions of life. School, work, and family/social life becomes infected with the stain of Matt's absence. Communication is limited and mostly in the form of letters, that become ever more precious, to each family member, as time begins to draw on. Until the letters and calls stop.
"She opens the door to a soldier in his twenties who immediately takes off his hat, revealing an extremely new haircut. He is flanked by another soldier twice his size. "I'm Sergeant Walker Ames. This is Army Chaplain McMurphy."…He is eerily, almost creepily calm Alice thinks, as her mind races to take in all the possibilities of what his presence on her front stoop mean."
In the midst of this tumultuous time the book's main character, Alice, is at that awkward stage of beginning to grow into herself. Author Laura Harrington beautifully captures that delicate balance between young womanhood and the waning child with Alice. From discovering her body, learning to drive, love, and loss Alice's experience will surely touch and move every reader.
"Alice lifts her head and opens her eyes and looks at her father. Now she can't get enough of looking at him. He is not the same; he is not the same at all. But what there is, what there still is, right here in front of her, close enough to touch, is this broken body, this man, this soldier. Her father. Hers."
The beauty in Alice Bliss is Harrington's ability to create a character that transcends the page and enters the reader's heart. Keep the tissues nearby, but also know that this is a story of hope. Alice Bliss is one of those rare gems of a read that will remain with the reader for a long long time to come.
Read more of Jason's reviews @: www.braincandybookreviews.com
