The Sound of Us
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- $7.99
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
From the acclaimed author of A Good Distance and Some Things That Stay, a thoughtful and compelling novel about the voices that call out to us—and the ways our lives can be transformed when we learn to listen.
It was past two in the morning and Alice Marlowe was in bed alone when the phone rang. Lifting the receiver, she heard the voice of a child at the other end—a child who was clearly frightened, reluctant to reveal too much, and like Alice, all alone.
After a brief, halting conversation—and before she knows quite what she’s doing—Alice is at the little girl’s apartment. She has no idea where Larissa Benton’s mother has gone or when she’s coming back. She knows the right thing to do is to call the police. But when they arrive and carry a crying Larissa away, accompanied by a social worker, Alice finds it difficult to let her go.
She had no plans to bring a child into her life. She is single, in her late forties. She lives with a cat named Sampson and has imaginary conversations with her dead twin brother. As a sign-language interpreter for the deaf, she is used to standing between people, facilitating their conversations with each other. But perhaps it is this unusual skill that can help Larissa, who, as she travels through the labyrinth of Cleveland’s child-welfare system, refuses to speak. And perhaps that late-night call was somehow meant to bring them together—a lonely woman with no one to love, and a beautiful, scared six-year-old girl.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Willis (A Good Distance) gracefully explores the world of foster care through the eyes of 48-year-old Alice Marlowe, an interpreter for the deaf living a lonely life in Cleveland. When Alice receives a late-night phone call from a six-year-old girl whose mother has disappeared, the last thing she expects to do is apply to become her foster parent, but one look at beautiful, dark-skinned Larissa Benton changes everything. Alice's maternal impulse surprises her "How did this child and I become us?" she wonders as she attends foster parenting classes and wonders if she can cope. Willis allows for ambiguity in her moving story: when Michelle, Larissa's white, wayward mother, returns, she's neither a villain nor a victim; Alice, who converses with her dead twin brother, is not a saint. When Michelle moves into Alice's home to be closer to her daughter, the narrative reaches its height of tension; Willis shows both the safety and generosity of Alice's world and the unpredictable but loving home that Michelle would provide. A careful, tender story of the complex bonds of motherhood, this novel doesn't shy away from its problems, but still comes to rest on the side of its wonders.