After You

July 6, 2009
Like her debut, The Opposite of Love
, Buxbaum’s second novel concerns a woman struggling with devastating loss. When American ex-pat Lucy Stafford is killed by a mugger, her lifelong best friend Ellie Lerner drops everything to fly to London. Ellie stays on after Lucy’s funeral to care for her friend’s eight-year-old daughter, Sophie, who witnessed her mom’s violent death and has since retreated into silence. Ellie also worries about Lucy’s husband, Greg, who confesses that he “can barely even look at” his daughter; her own divorced parents’ on-again, off-again relationship; and her long-suffering husband, waiting for her in the Boston suburbs. Ellie finds London as much a refuge as a place of mourning; she’s been unable to move past the birth of a stillborn child and feels the need to “borrow” Sophie. As she uncovers more of Lucy’s life, Ellie finds her own spinning out of control, and soon she’s forced to reassess even her deeply held certainties. Buxbaum skillfully handles this tale of grief and growing, resonant with realistic emotional stakes and hard-won wisdom.

July 15, 2009
New tragedy jars a rudderless woman out of her grief and into the life of a charming, troubled eight-year-old.

Ellie Lerner has been coasting for years since the death of her baby. Her marriage on hold, her teaching career lifeless, Ellie's only real connection seemed to be to her lifelong friend Lucy, who had moved to England, married and produced an adorable, precocious girl, Ellie's goddaughter Sophie. When Lucy is murdered, that tie seems severed also. But the connection to Sophie quickly takes its place, as Ellie drops her life in Boston to take up residence in Lucy's Notting Hill home. Sophie's father, Greg, has buried himself in work and drink; Ellie's husband, Phillip, doesn't understand. Only the troubled little girl really seems to need Ellie. Caring for her, Ellie comes to terms with her grief, and discovers some hard truths about her dear friend and about herself that help her move on. Buxbaum (The Opposite of Love, 2008) has a light touch with characterization, letting us judge the friends through Ellie's admittedly unreliable rose-colored nostalgia. But although the plotline could easily dip into formula, Buxbaum keeps the story as smart as the writing."If our lives were a movie, this would be the scene where the music changes," Ellie observes."We'd make eye contact—tentatively at first, then a pact—before we'd rip off each other's clothes and declare our undying love…But this is not a movie, and things are never simple." Instead, the author keeps it real and works out optimistic rather than happy endings for her sharply focused and honestly sympathetic characters.

Fresh, lightly done take on the classic tearjerker.

(COPYRIGHT (2009) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

July 1, 2009
When Ellies lifelong best friend, Lucy, is murdered on a London street in front of her eight-year-old daughter, Sophie, Ellie drops everythingcareer and husband (especially husband)and flies to England to nurse Sophie back to emotional health. Sophie has been rendered mute since her mothers death, and her father provides no comfort, taking refuge at work and the local pubs. Through nightly immersions in the magical realm in The Secret Garden, Ellie is able to cajole Sophie back into the real world, but the childs healing cant come soon enough to suit Ellies husband, Phillip. Still reeling from the death of their first child, the couples relationship was already strained when Ellie fled to London. Now, as she confronts her multiple losses, Ellie struggles to discover what her heart needs most of all. Buxbaum avoids the obvious tear-jerking effects such tragedies can produce, gracefully capturing the phenomenon of paralyzing loss with searing poignancy in her portrayal of heartbreakingly precocious Sophie.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)