New Year's Eve

December 2, 1996
On New Year's Eve, the Marks family has traditionally gathered in their Manhattan home to waltz, drink champagne, watch Guy Lombardo on TV and watch the globe drop in Times Square. On New Year's Eve 1990, in a scene near the end of this strong new novel by Grunwald (The Theory of Everything), narrator Erica breaks with tradition and separates herself, husband Edgar and daughter Sarah to nourish her home without the interference of her controlling father and twin sister, Heather. This moment is the fruition of a well-crafted tale of family secrets, memories and myths. Tensions in the family begin to escalate after David, Heather's four-year-old son, is killed in an accident, and Sarah immediately believes he speaks to her from beyond the grave. Ironically, Dad and Heather, both medical doctors, prescribe playing along with Sarah's obsession, a dollhouse she and Heather are furnishing for David; they even engage a shady channeler who promises communication with the dead. Meanwhile, Erica, a university professor of mythology, grimly endures psychiatric help for her child and firmly resists her family's denial of death's finality. Flashbacks to the twins' childhood rivalry reveal the origins of their constant psychological tug-of-war (they even engage in a race to get pregnant) and how the family has sought a center since Mom's death. The denouement, an integration of story time and myth time, is poignant, and healing, with the promise of new life. It contrasts sharply with the climax, whose cruelty is all the more intense because it suggests that it is human nature to forget, time after time, the inhuman pain we inflict in the sacred name of "family." First serial to Good Housekeeping; Literary Guild alternate selection; author tour.

October 15, 1996
Erica and her estranged fraternal twin sister, Heather, regain their childhood closeness when they spend time together with their newborn babies. Erica's daughter, Sarah, and Heather's son, David, grow up as close as sister and brother until three-year-old David is killed in a freak traffic accident. Sarah begins talking to David in heaven, reporting on the stages he must go through before he can come back to life. Inexplicably, Heather encourages Sarah, and the two form a close bond as they work together to build a doll house meant for David. Desperately worried about Sarah's mental health, Erica also wrestles with her jealousy of Sarah's bond with Heather, worries about her aging father's memory lapses, and tries her best to form a family apart from her sister. Grunwald (The Theory of Everything, Knopf, 1991) has written an engrossing story about the conflicting pull of family relationships. Recommended for public libraries.--Patricia Ross, Westerville P.L., Ohio

July 1, 1997
YA-New Year's Eve has always been a special time for Erica; her fraternal twin sister, Heather; and their entire family, but when Heather's four-year-old son is accidentally killed, New Year's Eve becomes a nightmare time and the relationships among family members increasingly disintegrate. Sarah, Erica's young daughter, loses her closest friend when David dies, but seems to perceive his ghostly presence and continues communicating with him. What is reality and what is illusion? During a summer vacation at the old family cabin, Erica becomes pregnant again and is confined to bed long enough for Heather and Sarah to become so closely connected in their grief that together they build a dollhouse that David seems to inhabit. Jealousy, sibling rivalry, death and its relationship to mythology, grief and the coping mechanisms one creates-all are underlying themes throughout this very readable, fast-paced novel. Chapters primarily revolve around various New Year's celebrations; the story begins with events in 1985 and continues on until 1991 when all threads are satisfactorily tied. YAs will be pulled into the psychological exploration of life after death and find much to think about and discuss. A satisfying novel with more depth to it than is initially obvious.-Dottie Kraft, formerly at Fairfax County Public Schools, VA

November 1, 1996
Erica and Heather are twin sisters whose lives draw closer at the birth of their children weeks apart. Erica has a daughter, Sarah; Heather has a son, David. Three years later, David is killed in a car accident, and the relationship deteriorates because of the struggle between Erica, Heather, and Sarah. The novel moves seamlessly back and forth between happy and sad times, between New York City and the Berkshires. Sarah talks to David in Heaven, and Erica and her husband become increasingly aware that Heather is encouraging Sarah's obsession with her dead cousin to put an emotional wedge between Sarah and her mother. The reader will hope that Erica can reclaim her daughter from Heather's grief to build a future based on the present, not the past. Grunwald's prose is lean, almost relentless. She understands her characters and subtly guides their emotions as they shift and collide throughout this perceptive novel. ((Reviewed November 1, 1996))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1996, American Library Association.)