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Falling in Love with Natassia
Anna Monardo
Doubleday
June 2006
496 pages ISBN: 0385514662 Hardcover
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Women's Fiction Contemporary
Mary and Ross were in Rome on a junior-year-abroad program
when they had their baby, Natassia, who was conceived on a
dare: “Do it with no birth control,” another couple had
challenged. “We’ll do it if you do it . . .” Mary and Ross are unmarried, ambitious, and way too young,
and though smitten with their daughter, they eventually—
and with regret—abdicate responsibility to Ross’s parents,
who raise Natassia in the intellectually stimulating (and
seemingly loving) atmosphere of their Manhattan apartment.
Fifteen years later, 1989, Natassia is an Honors student
and a violin player. Despite the absence of her mother, a
world-class modern dancer who survives by living in the
moment, and her father, a physician in the Pacific
Northwest, Natassia is thriving—until her mysterious
romance with a man she will not identify derails her so
profoundly that her parents, grandparents, and even her
godparents, Nora and Christopher, must come together to
save her. A dancer, a doctor, two book editors, a painter
and a psychotherapist—all are forced to turn away from and
also draw upon the creative and intellectual endeavors
that consume and define them. Struggling to buoy Natassia,
her guardians sink along with her into the deepest
darkness. Mary, a Korean war orphan, must learn from step one how to
provide the mother love she herself never received;
indeed, the daughter's breakdown sparks the mother's
coming-of-age. Ross, still in love with Mary after ten
years’ separation, must face the consequences of his
obsessions. And Nora and Christopher, burdened by a
decades-old secret, use desperate measures to save
Natassia—and their marriage.
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