REVIEWED BY KIM HUBBARD
FICTION
From enticing title to satisfying end, this tale of a mother's fierce devotion to her autistic son screams Hollywood screenplay; film rights have, in fact, been sold. But don't wait for the movie. Leimbach (whose Dying Young became a '91 Julia Roberts hit) has a gift for emotionally searing fiction leavened with humor, and Daniel is a gripping read. Diagnosed as autistic at 3, Melanie Marsh's son doesn't speak or make eye contact and has so many meltdowns his sister names them like hurricanes: Tantrum Annabel, Tantrum Louise. Melanie's stuffy Brit husband—and all the London experts—want to relegate him to a special school. But Marsh, a transplanted American who's retained her Yankee can-do spirit, feels sure there's a better way. With the help of a hunky Irish play therapist (we know where this is going), she devotes herself to making Daniel interact. Leimbach, whose own son is autistic, perfectly captures the single-minded intensity of maternal attunement. Helping Daniel, she notes, requires "courage, foolishness and quiet denial." You'll root for her all the way.
by Etgar Keret
REVIEWED BY KYLE SMITH
CRITIC'S CHOICE
SHORT STORIES
If the Brothers Grimm were alive and had expense accounts and girl troubles, they might write like Keret, whose freaky fables usually begin with a crazy idea and end with a sad beauty, all in the span of as little as two or three pages.
In this omnibus of weird, one guy gets rich because he's the most ordinary man in the world. Another fears that his faithful dog is from another planet and only came to Earth for the tax write-off. And a young dad-to-be sleeps with his head on his wife's tummy so that his unborn child will absorb his dreams. Which causes problems.
The jokes stumble into elegantly designed moments of truth; there are diamonds in Keret's banana peels. In "Glittery Eyes" a little girl wishes for eyes that sparkle. But the story's really about the boy in the background of her life: His eyes glitter with longing for her. An Israeli writer who isn't interested in politics or religion, Keret can do more with six strange and funny paragraphs than most writers can with 600 pages.
by Fernanda Eberstadt
REVIEWED BY MARIA SPEIDEL
NONFICTION
A romantic who says she understands the appeal of running away with Gypsies, Eberstadt has written a memoir about the next best thing: hanging with a band of Gypsies in the South of France. With her scholar husband and their two kids, she decamped in 1998 from New York to shabby Roussillon, in the Pyrenees. While her husband wrote, the Oxford graduate formed unlikely friendships with locals like Diane, wife of a Gypsy singer. They drank coffee, smoked Marlboros and chatted ceaselessly. In Eberstadt's talented hands the sojourn becomes an intriguing look at the mores of a mysterious and maligned subset of Europe's underclass, a fascinating freeze-frame of a fading culture.
by Elizabeth Berg
REVIEWED BY JOSH EMMONS
NOVEL
Rising above its sugary title and stock 1964 Mississippi setting, Berg's latest is the moving story of young teen Diana Dunn, her polio-stricken mother, Paige, and their African-American housekeeper Peacie in a world that seems determined to exclude them. With the Civil Rights movement thrumming in the background, Diana wanders through the zone between childhood games and adolescent changes, while Paige and Peacie begin to address their own needs after so many years of focusing on Diana's. Deftly told, this tale turns on a painful, liberating transition that allows each character to come wholly and appealingly alive on the page.
For an interview with Marti Leimbach, go to www.people.com/autism
Leimbach's autistic son Nicholas, now 9, is talking—and going to school, playing the guitar and keeping Leimbach and her family in stitches. "He has a fantastic sense of humor," Leimbach says. Like Daniel's heroine, she forged her own path in treating her child, using an amalgam of behavioral therapies and well-informed winging it. Her message to others in her shoes: There are no miracle cures, but make sure to get educated, reach out to fellow autism parents, "and don't believe your child's fate is sealed at 3."
Fiction
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
A young girl in Nazi Germany salvages volumes from book burnings, and the books then become a means of salvation not only for her but for her loved ones. Written for young adults, Zusak's novel is a major achievement.
Saving the World by Julia Alvarez
This engrossing, expertly paced novel links two women, centuries apart, touched by battles against smallpox and AIDS. It's clear by story's end that the past informs the present and that altruism has its costs.
Halfway House by Katharine Noel
In her emotionally intense, beautifully crafted debut, Noel sheds new light on the old story about tragedy tearing a family apart. Here a star student has a psychotic break during a swim meet, and lives are shattered.
Duchess of Nothing by Heather McGowan
A strange and startling novel whose eccentric narrator—a woman who leaves her husband and goes to Rome—is unnamed and delusional as she recounts her tenuous existence. Beautiful and jagged, immensely comic and oddly moving.
IN CHARACTER
Taking cues from lensman Schatz, stars from Edie Falco to Michael York show their stuff in this lively photo book. Here Schatz directs Natasha Richardson:
YOU ARE ... a woman beginning to wonder if the man you've been dating for a year is just stringing you along ... ... the former class weirdo now a rock star, in your limousine on the way to your high school reunion ... ... a computer whiz who has hacked into your English teacher's files and has just aced the final.
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
