From the Publisher
In Victoria Redel's mesmerizing first novel, the question of what happens when a mother loves her child too much is deeply and darkly explored. Left with a small fortune by her parents and the cryptic advice, "it would do to find a passion," Redel's narrator sets out to become a mother--a task she feels she can be adequately passionate about. She conceives her son Paul through a loveless one-night stand, surrounds him with a wonderful, magical world for two--a world filled with books, music, endless games, and bottomless devotion--and calls him pet names like Birdie, Cookie, Puppy, and Loverboy. She wonders, "Has ever a mother loved a child more?" But as life outside their lace curtains begins to beckon the school-age Paul, his mother's efforts to keep him content in their small world become increasingly frantic and ultimately extreme by all definitions.
In this exquisite debut novel, Victoria Redel takes us deep into the mind of a very singular mother, exposing the dangerously whisper-thin line between selfless and selfish motivation that exists in all types of devotion.
From The Critics
Publishers Weekly
In Redel¹s controlled and convincing tale of a mother¹s obsession for her child, the first-person narrator endangers the life of her grade-school son, then asks rhetorically, "Has a mother ever loved a child more?" It is a disturbing question, since the entire novel proves to be the narrator¹s heartfelt demonstration of her single-minded devotion to the raising of her son, Paul. Beautifully succinct, lyrically composed chapters give occasionally disturbing glimpses of the narrator gravely ill in a hospital room, but not until the end of the novel does the reader become chillingly aware of how she has resisted the intrusion of the real world. Painting a convincing portrait of her complex and surprising sympathetic narrator, Redel (Where the Road Bottoms Out) makes it possible to empathize with the woman¹s overwhelming love for her son: the novel succeeds because the reader cannot condemn her.
Isn¹t a boy¹s best friend always his mother? But what if Mom¹s existence revolves exclusively around the child? In Loverboy, debut novelist Victoria Redel takes maternal love to bizarre, harrowing extremes.
Loverboy is stunningly fine. No Novel has rattled me this much since Judith Rossner¹s Looking for Mr. Goodbar. More Redel, please, and soon.
In Victoria Redel's mesmerizing first novel, the question of what happens when a mother loves her child too much is deeply and darkly explored. Left with a small fortune by her parents and the cryptic advice, "it would do to find a passion," Redel's narrator sets out to become a mother--a task she feels she can be adequately passionate about. She conceives her son Paul through a loveless one-night stand, surrounds him with a wonderful, magical world for two--a world filled with books, music, endless games, and bottomless devotion--and calls him pet names like Birdie, Cookie, Puppy, and Loverboy. She wonders, "Has ever a mother loved a child more?" But as life outside their lace curtains begins to beckon the school-age Paul, his mother's efforts to keep him content in their small world become increasingly frantic and ultimately extreme by all definitions.
In this exquisite debut novel, Victoria Redel takes us deep into the mind of a very singular mother, exposing the dangerously whisper-thin line between selfless and selfish motivation that exists in all types of devotion.
From The Critics
Publishers Weekly
In Redel¹s controlled and convincing tale of a mother¹s obsession for her child, the first-person narrator endangers the life of her grade-school son, then asks rhetorically, "Has a mother ever loved a child more?" It is a disturbing question, since the entire novel proves to be the narrator¹s heartfelt demonstration of her single-minded devotion to the raising of her son, Paul. Beautifully succinct, lyrically composed chapters give occasionally disturbing glimpses of the narrator gravely ill in a hospital room, but not until the end of the novel does the reader become chillingly aware of how she has resisted the intrusion of the real world. Painting a convincing portrait of her complex and surprising sympathetic narrator, Redel (Where the Road Bottoms Out) makes it possible to empathize with the woman¹s overwhelming love for her son: the novel succeeds because the reader cannot condemn her.
Isn¹t a boy¹s best friend always his mother? But what if Mom¹s existence revolves exclusively around the child? In Loverboy, debut novelist Victoria Redel takes maternal love to bizarre, harrowing extremes.
Loverboy is stunningly fine. No Novel has rattled me this much since Judith Rossner¹s Looking for Mr. Goodbar. More Redel, please, and soon.
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