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Book Summary and Reviews of Goldengrove by Francine Prose

Goldengrove by Francine Prose

Goldengrove

A Novel

by Francine Prose

  • Critics' Consensus (0):
  • Readers' Rating (2):
  • Published:
  • Sep 2008, 288 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

At the center of Francine Prose's profoundly moving new novel is a young girl facing the consequences of sudden loss after the death of her sister. As her parents drift toward their own risky consolations, thirteen-year-old Nico is left alone to grope toward understanding and clarity, falling into a seductive, dangerous relationship with her sister's enigmatic boyfriend.

Over one haunted summer, Nico must face that life-changing moment when children realize their parents can no longer help them. She learns about the power of art, of time and place, the mystery of loss and recovery. But for all the darkness at the novel's heart, the narrative itself is radiant with the lightness of summer and charged by the restless sexual tension of teenage life.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"Prose eschews her familiar satiric mode. She fluidly maintains Nico's tender insights into the human condition." - Publishers Weekly.

"Starred Review. Though wrapped up a tad too abruptly, this highly accessible novel, lightened with wry humor, is an insightful examination of the various ways people use imagination and memory to cope with devastating loss." - Library Journal.

"Arguably a tad too wistfully meditative, Prose's latest novel nevertheless charms and persuades." - Kirkus Reviews.

This information about Goldengrove was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

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Author Information

Francine Prose Author Biography

© Marion Ettinger

Francine Prose is the author of twenty-two works of fiction including the highly acclaimed The Vixen; Mister Monkey; the New York Times bestseller Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932; A Changed Man, which won the Dayton Literary Peace Prize; and Blue Angel, which was a finalist for the National Book Award. Her works of nonfiction include the highly praised Anne Frank: The Book, The Life, The Afterlife, and the New York Times bestseller Reading Like a Writer, which has become a classic. The recipient of numerous grants and honors, including a Guggenheim and a Fulbright, a Director's Fellow at the Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library, Prose is a former president of PEN American Center, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American ...

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Other books by Francine Prose at BookBrowse
  • The Vixen jacket
  • Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932 jacket

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