Blame

Starred review from May 18, 2009
In this gripping tale, Huneven charts the parameters of guilt and how a young, wisecracking intellectual becomes a shadow of her former self. Patsy MacLemoore, a boozy history professor, is helping her boyfriend, Brice, take care of his niece, Joey, whose mother is undergoing cancer treatment. But when Patsy goes on a bender and emerges from a drunken blackout in jail, she learns she’s accused of having run down a mother and daughter in her driveway. After her conviction, Patsy transforms from free spirit into a convict, and Huneven deftly underscores the bizarre trajectory Patsy’s life has taken. In a prison AA group, Patsy seeks redemption and meaning; she also develops a relationship with the man whose wife and daughter she killed and helps put his son through school, stays the course after her release and maintains a friendship with Brice and Joey. Brilliant observations, excellent characters, spiffy dialogue and a clever plot keep readers hooked, and the final twist turns Patsy’s new life on its ear. Huneven’s exploration of misdeeds real and imagined is humane, insightful and beautiful.

July 15, 2009
Huneven (Jamesland, 2003, etc.) tracks a 20-year-old burden of guilt with supple technique.

Alcoholism and integrity drive her novel, which is narrated with flashes of irony, appealing warmth and dry judgment. Patsy MacLemoore plays only a bit part in the opening scene, during which 12-year-old Joey, whose mother is dying in the hospital, spends a bizarre night in the care of her attractive, wastrel Uncle Brice and his girlfriend Patsy, an alcoholic history professor who gets drunk, gives Joey pills and beer and pierces her ears unevenly. The story proper begins a year later, in May 1981, and Patsy takes center-stage. During her latest blackout, she drives into and kills two Jehovah's Witnesses, mother and daughter. Prison follows, two harsh years from which Patsy emerges stripped to the emotional bone. She rebuilds her life assisted by Brice, his boyfriend Gilles (Patsy's not too surprised by that revelation) and the forgiveness of the husband and father of her victims. Seeking"a way to be good," she finds it caring for AIDS patients, starting with Gilles. She takes sanctuary in marriage to Cal, an older, richer man with a long history of helping the troubled. Patsy's resolution to be a better person means that she chooses not to act on her powerful attraction to a fellow academic. Twenty years after the killings, a stunning revelation forces her to recast her identity and her relationships.

Grace, insight and seemingly effortless narration distract from the odd pacing and sometimes meandering progress of this empathetic tale.

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

August 15, 2009
In 1981, Patsy MacLemoore is a smart, functioning alcoholic. A professor at Hallen College in Altadena, CA, she is known for loud and lascivious behavior at faculty parties and for missing the occasional class after a night of drinking and taking pills. When Patsy, who has a suspended license, is arrested and jailed for hitting and killing a mother and daughterboth Jehovah's Witnessesin her driveway, she doesn't remember the accident. After two years in prison, Patsy quits drinking, eventually returning to her old job but not her old ways. Patsy's sober life is carefully unfurlednew connections forged, old relationships changed, a constant background of remorse and shamebut the book's promotional copy somewhat spoils this talented author's ("Jamesland") carefully nuanced, sharply focused narrative by trumpeting a plot twist that isn't even hinted at before page 220. VERDICT Recommended to readers who enjoy literary novels like Sue Miller's "Lost in the Forest" and Laura Moriarty's "The Rest of Her Life" that examine how a tragic accident irrevocably changes life's course. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 5/15/09.]Laurie A. Cavanaugh, Brockton P.L., MA

Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from July 1, 2009
When college professor Patsy MacLemoore comes to in the drunk tank of the Altadena sheriffs department, she cant remember what shes done. All she knows is that she has been there before and vowed shed never return. This time it turns out that Patsy has killed two Jehovahs Witnesses, a mother and daughter, while driving on a suspended license. Shes sentenced to four years in prison, and her life is never the same. From the horrific noise and filth of prison life tohermembership in AA to her eventual release and slow climb back to normalcy, Patsy struggles to come to terms with the repercussions of her drunken blackout. She meets and marries a much older man who is completely devoted to his work with AA; she attempts to atone to the man whose family she killed and agrees to pay for his sons college education; and she throws herself into her teaching career with a newfound sense of purpose. Then she receives startling new information about the exact circumstances of the accident andmust once again remake her life. Huneven turns complicated moral issues into utterly riveting reading in this beautifully written story of remorse and redemption.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)