THE MONSTERS OF CHILDHOOD: A NOVEL
Book ID/图书代码： 08900010B35701
English Summary/英文概要： The Monsters of Childhood is most aptly described as up-market mainstream fiction. The novel takes place in a small coastal town in Rhode Island during the summer of 1934. Within a context of New Deal labor strikes and union busting, a hint of desperation pervades the town after five years of economic depression, and a dwindling white, pioneer-stock majority faces immigration that is inevitably changing the order of their world in a town with a growing community of Portuguese immigrant workers. The narrator, Anne Dodge, is a young woman raised by her old-money, New England protestant father.
She has been told that her Portuguese mother abandoned them years before, when she was a small child, and died without ever contacting them again. The story opens as this young woman meets the half-sister she has just learned she has—Maria Cristina, the half-sister who was raised, unlike herself, among the Portuguese immigrants—and ugly truths begin to surface about what really happened between her parents, catalyzing events that end in loss and rediscovery. Paralleling the story of the narrator’s reunion with her biological sister is a tragedy among the Portuguese immigrant working families, when a boy is found murdered at the shoreline of the town. The heroine’s adopted father-figure, a local boat-builder named Ezra Johnson, seems implicated in the murder and, inexplicably to Anne, refuses to defend himself. Ezra’s plight, as much as the narrator’s status as a child of both communities, yokes together the two stories.
The characters in this novel must confront the new American issues of race and class brought about by southern European immigration and urban industrialization in the New England textile industry of the early twentieth century. The narrator grapples throughout with the gender-expectations of the day, attempting to come to terms with the complexities of her own desires—for family, for work, for a creative life, for independence and mobility.
Chinese Summary/中文概要： 新銳女性小說作家Julie Drew 茱麗 珠兒，故事以美國20世紀初期經濟蕭條的背景、移民潮帶來的種族問題、外來民族在當地所遭遇的待遇，以及當地白人與外來人的結合後，小孩背負的兩個世界的糾葛。這樣的複雜背景下，主角要如何保持自信及希望，來面對所處的世界呢？
媲美 大衛古特森《愛在冰雪紛飛時》& 安妮普魯勒《真情快遞》
20世紀初期的美國羅德島，因為新政 (美國總統 F. D. Roosevelt 於1933-39年間實施的改革政策,以社會保障和經濟復興為主要內容)的停擺、工會所製造的混亂，以及五年經濟的大蕭條，白人出走、大批湧入的葡萄牙移民，更加深當地的人心惶惶及絕望，及族群的衝突。
安娜道琪，從小便被告知葡萄牙裔的母親，在她很小的時候拋棄了她，到死前都未曾再聯絡過。靠著英格蘭新教徒的父親及代代祖產長大成人。
故事發生在1934年的夏天。
安娜得知自己有個妹妹瑪麗亞克利斯汀，在準備與她見面的當天，一位葡萄牙移民後裔的小男孩，在城鎮的海岸邊被謀殺了。
被安娜視為如父親般敬愛的造船者埃斯拉強森，被指控涉嫌這樁謀殺案，卻拒絕替自己辯護，使安娜感到無法理解。
同時，安娜也體悟到，瑪莉克利斯汀是如何以完全迥異的方式，在葡萄牙移民家中成長。探索地越深入，便挖掘出更多過去發生在她父母身上的故事--醜陋的事實真相逐漸浮出表面。
埃斯拉被指控謀殺的處境、與夾雜在兩個截然不同社會的安妮，兩人的故事緊緊交織纏繞在一起。
故事中人物將面對美國因歐洲移民而帶來新的階級及種族問題，以及20世紀初期，新英格蘭州的紡織工業所帶來的城市工業化的挑戰；並且如何在這樣複雜的歷史背景，依然懷抱自己對於家庭、工作、及嶄新獨立、自由生活的期望。(SK)
Awards/获奖情况：
About the Author/作者介绍： 茱麗 珠兒，美國亞克朗大學的副教授。教導寫作、電影、文化探討，她的研究興趣包括文化研究，當代演講理論、修辭學，公共及教育政策。
她曾替《The Cleveland Plain Dealer》寫書評、替某些報章寫過學術性文章，也出版過三本教科用書。《The Monsters of Childhood》是她第一本小說。
個人網頁: http://www3.uakron.edu/english/drew
Format:电子手稿
Rights Status/版权销售情况：Simplified Chinese/简体中文：AVAILABLE
Complex/Traditional Chinese/繁体中文：AVAILABLE
Sales in other countries/其他国家销售情况：
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