The Center of the World
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4.6 • 7 Ratings
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- $8.99
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
Seventeen-year-old Phil has felt like an outsider as long as he can remember. All Phil has ever known about his father is that he was Number Three on his mother’s long list—third in a series of affairs that have set Phil’s family even further apart from the critical townspeople across the river. As for his own sexuality, Phil doesn’t care what the neighbors will think; he’s just waiting for the right guy to come along.
But Phil can’t remain a bystander forever. Not when he’s surrounded by his mother, Glass, who lives by her own rules and urges Phil to be equally strong; his sister, Dianne, who is abrupt and willful, with secrets to share; his uncle Gable, a restless mariner, defined by his scars; his best friend, Kat, who is generous but possessive. And finally, there is distant Nicholas, with whom Phil falls overwhelmingly in love—until he faces the ultimate betrayal and must finally find his worth . . . and place in the world.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Seventeen-year-old Phil relates the events of his tumultuous childhood in a provincial German town in this sophisticated story about love and longing, secrets and betrayal. In the gripping opening scene, Phil and his twin, Dianne, are born on a snow-covered path when their teenage American mother, Glass, goes into labor while trying to reach her sister's house. The sister is dead. The house, named "Visible" for its perch overlooking the town, now belongs to Glass. Glass's outsider status makes her fodder for gossip among the townsfolk (Phil disdainfully calls them "Little People"). Glass's promiscuity makes her notorious; the list of those she's slept with numbers 50, with dates next to the names (Phil figures out Number Three is the twins' father). As the "whore's children," the twins are ostracized, until Dianne definitively fends off some bullies, and her brother joins her. Phil, who recognizes at a young age that he's attracted to men, is refreshingly unconflicted about his sexuality, as is Glass, who hires a male prostitute as Phil's birthday present. He falls hard for a handsome track star, a clearly doomed relationship that ends with Phil acting on his realization that even the panoramic view from Visible isn't wide enough for him. The author introduces big ideas onto this small-town canvas, and the characters and events may well be absorbing to readers in the same way that the goings-on of Phil's family enthrall the neighbors. Ages 14-up.
