Outside the Lines

November 28, 2011
In Hatvany’s latest (after Best Kept Secret), vivid and flawed characters struggle with the complexities of family, friends, and lovers. Seattle caterer and budding restaurateur Eden West is on a mission to find her father and maybe fix her love life in the bargain. After a suicide attempt 20 years ago, Eden’s father, a manic-depressive, alcoholic painter, disappeared. Now, incapable of a successful relationship, Eden is determined to find out what has become of him. For help, she visits a homeless shelter, Hope House, and tumbles into a relationship with its director, who urges her to volunteer her culinary services. Hatvany unfolds her tale over two time periods and from the perspectives of both Eden and her father, which eventually helps to enrich and complicate the adult Eden. Family secrets and Eden’s inability to accept her father will keep readers guessing, and the evolution of Eden’s relationships with her mother, stepfather, and new boyfriend lends credence to the ending. A palpable love story, emotional search for and acceptance of a lost parent, and a bittersweet ending make for an enveloping, heartfelt read. Agent: Victoria Sanders.

January 15, 2012
What if the best thing for an artist is to lose his creativity? What if the best thing for a father is to leave his family? What if the best thing for a little girl is to lose her father? Who decides what's best? Hatvany (Best Kept Secret, 2011, etc.) explores the collisions between mental illness and societal expectations, artistic creativity and medical treatment, love and responsibility. David loves paints passionately, loves his wife Lydia and adores his daughter Eden. The demons of mental illness screech in his head, yet the price of silencing them is steep. Although self-medicating with alcohol dampens the voices, it does little for his impulsive behavior. Taking his prescribed lithium helps him stay inside the lines, behaving properly and making Lydia believe he is trying to get better. But the lithium destroys his creativity and deadens his emotions. Young Eden stands by her father's side through years of depression, hospitalizations, jail, lies and self-recriminations. Given a final chance by Lydia to take his medication and get well, David fails again. But this time he is driven so deeply into self-loathing that he attempts suicide. Realizing how dangerous David has become to Eden's well-being, Lydia finally drives him away from his family. Haunted by his absence, Eden spends her life searching for him, wondering what might have been. As she searches homeless shelters and soup kitchens, she meets Jack Baker. An advocate for the people who live outside the lines, Jack offers Eden the chance to understand her father's world. He also offers her the chance to find real love, anchoring her when she, at last, finds David. But after 20 years, how will father and daughter reconnect? Although plunged into devastating losses as well as great joy, Hatvany's characters suffer from a lack of emotional range and a predictable plot.

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