Father's Day

Starred review from February 22, 2016
In Van Booy’s moving, redemptive new novel, a little girl grows into a talented and insightful young woman under the tutelage of her uncle, a disabled, unemployed ex-con with tremendous rage issues. The story unfolds in two timelines, the first of which begins when six-year-old Harvey becomes an orphan, and a rule-bending social worker convinces Harvey’s reluctant uncle Jason to take in a child he’s never met. The second story line, when Harvey is 26, revolves around Jason’s visit for Father’s Day in Paris, where Harvey lives and works. The novel fleshes out much of the intervening years, with a clean writing style that avoids any mawkishness. Harvey’s thoughts and feelings as a child, for instance, are age appropriate in content and expression; she never comes off as overly precocious. The third-person narrative gives both characters their own, distinctive voices that nonetheless change over time. Van Booy (The Illusion of Separateness) creates refreshing, humorous, yet poignant childhood milestones that the two reach with emotional honesty. As Jason raises Harvey, he grows as a person, his absolution coming from surprising places. Agent: Carrie Konia, Conville and Walsh Literary Agency

November 15, 2015

A six-year-old girl incongruously named Harvey has just lost her parents in a car accident, and her only living relative is a disabled felon named Jason. Surprisingly, social worker Wanda senses that declaring Jason the guardian of Harvey would be the making of them both. The multi-award-winning Van Booy has an excellent track record, with most recent novel, the best-selling The Illusion of Separateness, flat-out brilliant.

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 15, 2016
A portrait of a unique family whose love overcomes odds. Van Booy (Tales of Accidental Genius, 2015, etc.) opens with sweet scenes of a young girl. The toddler, Harvey, observes the world with wonder as her parents help her make sense of it all. Harvey has dolls and toys from McDonald's and appears in most ways very well loved. There is a sense of foreboding about her growing older, however. By the chapter's end, her parents are stunned that she is starting first grade. From there, we jump forward. Twenty years later, Harvey is anxiously waiting for her father's arrival in Paris, where she now lives. She has prepared a Father's Day gift for him, a box filled with objects to symbolize "some vital moment of their lives." The final object will be the most important, freeing her father from a secret he's been keeping for 20 years. Alternating between past and present, the novel fills in the 20-year gap. Jason, the father who visits in Paris, is actually not Harvey's biological father but her uncle, who became her legal guardian after her parents died in a car accident. He's a recovering alcoholic with a criminal record and a prosthetic leg. They make for an odd pair at first; Jason abandons his tough-guy persona while young Harvey learns to play the drums from him and dreams of working at Jiffy Lube when she grows up. The tone often borders on the saccharine, and, though their relationship deepens, the characters don't. Despite this, there are moments of genuine emotion. Jason quits smoking for Harvey's sake, but when he won't share his nicotine gum, she's hurt. "That's so selfish," she says. "You never think about me." A sentimental story of the bond between father and child.

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April 15, 2016
Harvey is just six when her parents are killed in an automobile accident. Her closest relative is her uncle, Jason, an unemployed ex-con with a prosthetic leg and a history of violent behavior. Not exactly promising dad material, but Wanda from social services sees something in him and works to make him Harvey's legal guardian. Nearly 25 years later, Harvey is a graphic artist living in Paris, and Jason comes for a visit. Van Booy (The Illusion of Separateness, 2013) shifts back and forth between Harvey and Jason's time in Paris and their previous history as her vulnerability taps into his protective instincts, and he learns to become the dad that she needs him to be. As a Father's Day gift, Harvey has put together a box filled with items that are reminders of their shared past, emblematic of the accumulation over the years of all the ordinary objects and events that helped shape and fortify their bond. The good outcome notwithstanding, the novel is almost heartbreaking in its expression of the hunger to love and be loved.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)