Footprints

Starred review from March 4, 1996
A marriage under poignant stress is the focus of Hearon's intelligent and perceptive 15th novel (after Life Estates). The accidental death of their 22-year-old daughter, Bethany, and the transplanting of her heart to a Texas preacher has created simmering tension between Nan and Douglas Mayhall. A research scientist specializing in the brain, Douglas reacts with sheer emotion: he thinks Bethany still lives in the preacher's body. Nan, on the other hand, evinces a more "scientific'' response; determined to come to terms with Bethany's death, she also confronts the resentments of a lifetime, especially the societal expectations that forced her to forego a Ph.D in paleontology to raise Bethany and a son, Bert, now a marine physiologist and diver. The prickly relationship between Douglas and Bert, and Douglas's need to replace Bethany with a new baby (via an affair with an English professor at the college where he teaches) further complicate the Mayhalls' difficulty in coming to terms with their loss. Hearon measures the delicate pulse of marital relationships--the mutually understood limits and excesses each demands of or allows the other--while eventually illuminating the fundamental secrets that even long-wed spouses keep deeply buried. Though her touch is light, she is not afraid to expose readers to such details as the components of paleontological exploration or a step by step description of a heart transplant, each expressed in clear prose. Settings of an upstate New York college town, a Texas ranch and Florida's Sanibel Island are rendered with graceful particulars, and the dialogue is pitch-perfect. It all adds up to a thoughtful, compassionate exploration of the constant adjustments that marriage demands, and of the needs of women to find identities outside of the marital bond.

March 1, 1996
Over 25 years, Nan Mayhall has made more than her share of compromises in return for a relatively stable marriage to Douglas, a successful academic. She finds the accompanying frustrations bearable until the shocking accidental death of Bethany, her adored daughter. Nan recoils from her husband's reaction to the tragedy: he becomes obsessed with the notion of part of Bethany living on through her transplanted heart. Douglas insists on establishing a relationship with the recipient, but he virtually ignores the grief experienced by his wife and their surviving child. Eventually, growing family divisions push Nan to seek a separate peace. She embarks on a physical and mental journey to confront old conflicts and new pain, hoping for a path to mutual healing. Veteran writer Hearon (Life Estates, LJ 2/1/94) brings the Mayhalls' story to believable life through carefully wrought, affecting characterizations and accurately rendered details of place and custom. Recommended for most fiction collections.--Starr E. Smith, Marymount Univ. Lib., Arlington, Va.

March 15, 1996
Hearon is a comforting writer, not a cozy one, because there's too much down-and-dirty reality in her books. But in reading Hearon's impressive list of novels (the latest was "Life Estates," 1994), one realizes that in her fiction, although children may die, marriages crumble, and the world go awry, the characters will come through as stronger and better people. And all this without overt preachiness! In her most recent novel, the sudden death of their 22-year-old daughter, Bethany, forces Nan and Douglas Mayhall to confront their differing approaches to life, chasms that have been smoothed over during their long marriage. Douglas takes comfort in knowing that Bethany's transplanted heart is keeping someone else alive. He takes a young lover and talks about having more children. Nan, on the other hand, feels that watching an actual transplant operation will help her deal with her grief. She believes that by getting back to the study of paleontology (which she gave up for marriage and children), she will be able to put Bethany's death in perspective. Hearon's compassionate novel conveys how marriages work--and don't work--in times of crisis and the various ways people deal with sorrow and loss. ((Reviewed March 15, 1996))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1996, American Library Association.)