by PatriciaTyrrell (Author)
The novel is set in contemporary America and is narrated by Cate, a teenage girl. Cate has been raised on the run by a homeless drifter called Les, who abducted her from a campsite thirteen years before. Over the years, out of a warped sense of responsibility, Les has occasionally telephoned Cate's mother, to update her on her child's progress. But as the novel opens he rings to tell the confused and grieving woman that he is finally bringing her daughter home. Cate has done something so terrible that Les has belatedly understood the moral consequences of his actions years before. But how will Cate cope with learning to love a mother she can't remember, and with learning to despise the man she has come to consider as her father? And how will her English mother square the memories of her three-year-old daughter with the hard-bitten, cynical, white-trash teenager who turns up on her doorstep? And what will happen to them both when the awful secret Cate is hiding is brought out into the open?
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 284
Edition: First Thus
Publisher: W&N
Published: 01 Jun 2004
ISBN 10: 0297848917
ISBN 13: 9780297848912
Book Overview: This self-published novel was shortlisted for the Encore Award, and awarded a special 5,000 commendation prize. The novelist and poet Lavinia Greenlaw is a huge fan of Patricia's writing, and promises to help to bring her to a wider readership. The idea for the novel came from a true story about a child's abductor who would regularly telephone the parents of the baby he killed to tell them about the child's imaginary development. Patricia is an Anglo-American novelist living in England. She is seventy-three years old and has self-published two novels, both of which have been shortlisted for major awards.