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Knopf
May 2007
On Sale: May 1, 2007
240 pages ISBN: 1400041902 EAN: 9781400041909 Hardcover
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Fiction
At the heart of this electrifying novel is a crime of
unfathomable horror and its effect on several profoundly
different lives, each altered by a surprising connection to
the others. We hear four brilliantly realized voices: Helen, an inmate
at Sloatsburg women’s prison serving a life sentence for the
murder of her children; trapped within the maze of her own
tortured mind, she is the subject of damning national
attention. Dr. Louise Forrest, the recently divorced mother
of an eight-year-old boy—the new chief of psychiatry at
Sloatsburg. Angie, an ambitious Hollywood starlet, intent on
nothing but fame. And Ike Bradshaw, a sardonic corrections
officer, formerly a New York City narcotics detective. As the alternating narratives unfold, we begin to wonder why
Dr. Forrest has chosen Sloatsburg over the Park Avenue
practice for which she was trained. And the origin of
Helen’s psychosis is revealed—both its shocking depths and
its disturbingly convincing rationale—as well as why she is
desperate to make herself known to the young actress Angie. The Big Girls is a powerful and audacious novel about the
anarchy of families, the sometimes destructive power of the
maternal instinct, the vitality and evil of communities, and
the cult of celebrity—written in spare, evocative prose and
with a bold understanding of the darkest, most hidden
aspects of human nature.
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