The Order of Things

January 26, 2009
After long finding comfort in organization, introverted university librarian Andreas Hackett finds order abandoning her in Hinton’s (The Arms of God
) plodding novel. Suffering from depression, Andreas checks herself into Holly Pines, a psychiatric hospital. Therapy fails to elicit anything but Andreas’s observation that the caregivers are more interested in their own agendas than her problems. Her turnaround conveniently occurs shortly before her insurance runs out, when she’s placed in a room next to Lathin Hawkins, an elderly black prison inmate hospitalized for suicide attempts. A tentative conversation begun through adjoining room vents turns into an all-night catharsis as they share their darkest sorrows. Andreas recalls her transient childhood as the daughter of a single mother who frequently changed jobs and cities, and her guilt for not trying to save a cousin from a fatal fall when both were young. Lathin’s burden is twofold: a black man’s legacy of segregation and abuse, and the deeply personal regret of being unable to protect his daughter from abuse. The contrived happy ending mirrors Hinton’s overly emotive style and makes for a disappointing, pedestrian read.

January 15, 2009
An oddly satisfying little novel from Hinton (The Arms of God, 2005, etc.), most of which takes place during a single night at a mental institution.

As the story begins, Andy considers those things which made possible her fall into depression: the summer heat, the idle neglect of neighbors, the ominous absence of butterflies. We soon learn that this headlong swing into the abyss is nothing new for Andy —it is a shadow that crosses her life from time to time. But this summer it interferes with her work (she is a research librarian at a Southern university) and she is put on leave. She enters Holly Pines dubious and desperate, and she leaves fully recovered —all thanks to a suicidal prisoner from the local penitentiary. Feeling no better after weeks at the private hospital, Andy decides on her last day to attend chapel service. There she sees for the first time Lathin, a middle-aged African-American with bandages on his arms. She knows he has been moved to the room next to hers, but it comes as a surprise when, in the late evening, he begins talking to her through the air vent. Like priest and confessor separated by a wall, the two exchange confidences and memories so fragile they 've barely been spoken. He tells her about his mother and her sad, obsessive love for a small cactus, and of his daughter Mary, who mysteriously quit speaking. Andy tells Lathin of her own mother, a waitress wandering from one town and man to another, dreaming of becoming a journalist. Then she tells Lathin of the best time in her life, of the summers she spent on her grandmother 's farm with her beloved cousin PeeDee, of the happiness and the tragedy that shaped Andy 's safe, hollow adult life.

If Hinton 's conclusion is a bit too easy for realism, the emotional journey these two strangers make offers a spiritual truth about the power of confession and forgiveness.

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

February 15, 2009
Andreas, a college librarian, finds herself drowning in depression. We dont know much about her, but watch as she nearly comes undone and ultimately putsherself in a facility. Diagnosis and treatment are more dependent on the state of her insurance than need, so her disconnection from the process is as complete as that from herself. When a prison inmate is taken into the facility, the twohave a night-long conversation through the heating vents by the window. They have nothing in common except for their need and the resolution they can offer each other. In the morning it is as though the inmate never existed, raising the question of whether he was real. But Andreasrecovery is real, and, in her mind, so is he. Hintonsmatter-of-fact prosebelies the complexity of the story being told. There are also some curious quirks: the chapter headings are Dewey call numbers in honor of Andreas being alibrarian (albeitwithout even a BA, not to mention an MLS), but readerswill find much to enjoy.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)