Angels of Destruction

Cassandra Campbell has a difficult mission. She must convince listeners to suspend their disbelief and accept a world that darts between the real and the otherworldly. Nine-year-old Norah arrives in the middle of the night at the home of the lonely Mrs. Quinn. Mrs. Quinn's daughter, Erica, ran away ten years earlier, and she willingly takes in the child and makes up a story to explain her presence. Campbell's narration during this section of the story is whispery. Is she conveying secrecy, Norah's mysterious nature, or the questionable traits of the precocious child? Campbell's reading is more substantial when the character of Erica re-enters the story. She is more solidly developed than the angelic Norah, whose enigmatic, ethereal qualities may or may not hook the listener. S.W. (c) AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine

December 8, 2008
Tweaking some thematic elements of his previous novel, The Stolen Child
, Donohoe now tells the story of Norah, a nine-year-old who appears on the doorstep of Margaret Quinn, a widow living a solitary existence in a small Pennsylvania town in 1985. Margaret eagerly takes in Norah to make up for the loss of her own daughter, Erica, who disappeared 10 years earlier after running away to join the Angels of Destruction, a West Coast revolutionary group. Margaret passes off Norah as her granddaughter and enrolls her in school, where Norah becomes friendly with a boy who's been abandoned by his father. Complications ensue when Margaret's sister arrives and has to be convinced that Norah is Erica's daughter. Sandwiched between the story of Margaret and Norah's unusual relationship is the flashback narrative of teenage Erica's road adventures with her boyfriend on their way to join the Angels of Destruction. Norah's unexplained origins form the enigmatic core of this story, and though she comes across as more of a novelistic conceit than a flesh and blood character, the novel movingly illustrates the quest for connection hardwired into every human heart.