Splintering

From the remarkable author of YOU REMIND ME OF YOU, a searing novel in poems about a family falling apart. It's about the aftermath. It's about what happens after a stranger breaks into a house and attacks a family. It's about the sisters who must barricade themselves behind a splintering door while tethered on the phone to 911. It's about the father who nearly dies. It's about the son who hides. And everything after. Told in alternating perspectives, this is a powerful, moving story about a family that has its facade shattered by a random act of violence -- and must deal with what is discovered underneath. Publishers Weekly(April 19, 2004; 0-439-53597-2)Told in hard-hitting free verse, Corrigan's (You Remind Me of You) sometimes raw, often gripping novel chronicles the aftereffects of a violent assault on a dysfunctional family. The speakers alternate between the younger but tougher sister, 15-year-old Paulie, and the middle brother, Jeremy. Each is haunted by the crime: the family had gone to comfort the eldest daughter, Mimi, briefly separated from her husband, when a knife-wielding intruder broke into Mimi's house. In retrospect, Paulie is swamped by fear following her heroic defense of their mother and Mimi, and Jeremy by shame after his flight to the basement while their father confronted the attacker. Corrigan does not develop the two characters equally. Whereas Jeremy's issues seem a little simplified and his responses a bit static, Paulie's problems are legion (estrangement from friends; a poor choice of boyfriend and first sexual experience; nightmares; the residual effects of an abusive mother). The poems offer insight into sibling relationships, rivalries and misunderstandings, as the brother and sister each rage against the other, struggle at cross-purposes and find ways to reach each other across the parentally imposed silences and secrets. The author does not demonize the parents, however, and in some of the most thought-provoking verses the children muse about evidence of love they had never noticed before. Although this novel captures several kinds of splintering, its climax imparts hope of a solid healing. Ages 12-up. (Apr.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information. Booklist(April 1, 2004; 0-439-53597-2)Gr. 9-12. A stranger high on PCP crashes a family gathering, brandishing a machete. Dad's heart gives out while fending off the intruder, who then hacks his way into the bedroom where 15-year-old Paulie is hiding. A scene from a lurid horror novel? Nope. No one dies, for one thing. Corrigan is interested in what happens after 0 such a traumatic experience, how "the knots of people someone decided to unravel" knit themselves together again. In the same potent, naturally cadenced poetry that she applied to her own anorexia in You Remind Me of You 0 (2002), Corrigan alternates between the viewpoints of fierce 15-year-old Paulie and her reclusive older brother, Jeremy, also present during the attack. Corrigan's poetry captures every nuance of the siblings' relationship, although it proves a somewhat clumsy tool for explaining the family issues that hover in the background, including some hazily described physical abuse. But teens will be drawn to the terrifying premise and the characters' searing intensity. --Jennifer Mattson Copyright 2004 Booklist Eireann Corrigan is the author of the poetry memoir You Remind Me of You, and the novels Splintering, Ordinary Ghosts, The Believing Game, Creep, and Accomplice, which Publishers Weekly called "haunting and provocative" in a starred review. She lives in New Jersey. Publishers Weekly(April 19, 2004; 0-439-53597-2)Told in hard-hitting free verse, Corrigan's (You Remind Me of You) sometimes raw, often gripping novel chronicles the aftereffects of a violent assault on a dysfunctional family. The speakers alternate between the younger but tougher sister, 15-year-old Paulie, and the middle brother, Jeremy. Each is haunted by the