Novels Now

Precious by Sandra Novack
Random House, 2009
Fiction; 274 pgs

Where to begin? From the moment I first entered the world Sandra Novack created in Precious, I was in awe. The novel is beautifully written, lyrical even. At the very heart of the novel is the characters, each one weighed down by the events in their lives which have seemingly swallowed them whole. It is impossible to summarize this book succinctly. There are so many threads running through the novel. A mother who feels trapped in her life and neglected by her husband runs off, leaving behind a husband and two daughters. The repercussions of her actions have grave consequences. The oldest daughter, Eva, finds comfort in sex, taking up an affair with her married high school teacher who is going through his own marital crisis. Nine-year-old Sissy escapes into fantasy, often mixing her day dreams with reality. Frank, the girls’ father, is caught up in his own anger and frustration. He is just going through the motions, unable to be there for his daughters in a way they need him to be.

Add to that the sudden disappearance of a young girl in their small Pennsylvania town, which only increases the tensions already surrounding the family. Ginny Anderson, the mother of the missing girl, turns further inward, closing herself off from the rest of the world. Her connection to the Kisch family is twofold. Sissy and the missing girl, Vicki, had been good friends as had Sissy’s mother, Natalia, and Ginny.

Natalia’s return sets off an entirely new set of consequences for her family. So much has changed in the few months she had been gone.

There is so much to this novel. Each of the characters is flawed and their emotions are raw. Author Sandra Novack captures that so eloquently. One thing I found frustrating and yet so utterly true to life was how alone the characters felt. There were moments when they would come together, share in their pain and grief, but those moments were fleeting. Instead they each stood very much apart from one another, coping in their own ways. How many times did I want to reach out and hug Eva and Sissy?

Abandonment and loss are the two major themes of the novel. Within each of their lives the characters struggle to deal with their own feelings of loss. The role of family as well as that of love also plays a part. The Kisch family and the other various characters in the novel are faced with family crises that test their resolve, make them question their own realities, including the people they hold most dear.

The novel takes place in the summer of 1978, a time period that is quite significant to the setting of the book. The steel industry is showing signs of distress, the effects of the Vietnam War still linger, and it is a time when parents are less afraid for their children’s safety–at least until something unimaginable happens to change all that. Natalia’s own history as an immigrant child who lost her family during the Holocaust, herself having once lived in a concentration camp, colors her desires and perceptions of the day. Her family were Hungarian gypsies and she still carries bits of that with her. There were so many little threads like these which I would have liked to explore further, but Precious is not the book in which to do that. In this instance, such details helped fill out the characters and bring the story more fully to life.

I enjoyed Precious immensely. It took me a little while to get into it only because I wasn’t able to devote much time to reading it at first. Once I was able to sit down and really get into it, I couldn’t stop reading. I became a part of the story, my heart ached for so many of the characters–a sure sign that the book got under my skin and stole my heart. This was one of those books I hated to see come to an end.

Rating: (Very Good +)