NEARER THAN THE SKY

Book ID/图书代码： 14780011B48883

English Summary/英文概要： When Indie Brown was four years old, she was struck by lightning. In the oft-told version of the story, Indie’s life was heroically saved by her mother. But Indie’s own recollection of the event, while hazy, is very different. Most of Indie’s childhood memories are like this - tinged with vague, unsettling images and suspicions. Her mother, Judy, fussed over her pretty youngest daughter, Lily, as much as she ignored Indie. That neglect, coupled with the death of her beloved older brother, is the reason Indie now lives far away in rural Maine. It’s why her relationship with Lily is filled with tension, and why she dreads the thought of flying back to Arizona. But she has no choice. Judy is gravely ill, and Lily, struggling with a challenge of her own, needs her help. In Arizona, faced with Lily’s hysteria and their mother’s instability, Indie slowly begins to confront the truth about her half-remembered past and the legacy that still haunts her family. And as she revisits her childhood, with its nightmares and lost innocence, she finds she must revaluate the choices of her adulthood - including her most precious relationships.

Chinese Summary/中文概要： 當Indie Brown（尹迪•布朗）四歲時，她被閃電擊中。在這部老套的故事中，尹迪的生命曾被母親勇敢地救了下來。雖然有些懵懂，但尹迪自己卻記得整件事情的經過，是非同尋常的，尹迪童年大部分的記憶都像這樣 — 含糊不清，充滿了不安的追憶和懷疑。她的母親，Judy （裘蒂）由於對最小女兒Lily （莉莉）的過多憂心，差不多忽視了尹迪的存在。而那些被忽略的，和她所鍾愛的兄長的離世，是如今尹迪遠離家鄉住在偏遠的緬因州鄉村的原因之一。這也是她和妹妹莉莉關係緊張的原因，和她為何懼怕飛回亞利桑那州的原因。但她別無選擇，母親裘蒂病得很重，而妹妹莉莉，獨自一人面對困境，急需她的幫助。在亞利桑那州，面對莉莉的異常興奮和母親身體的日漸虛弱，尹迪漸漸地開始面臨關於她的那些童年模糊記憶和縈繞在家人周圍的紛紛擾擾。而當她再次追憶了自己童年時光，和那時的噩夢以及曾經失去的天真，她發現自己必須重新審視自己作為成人的選擇 — 包括她最珍貴的血脈親情。(Sandy)

Awards/获奖情况：“T.格林伍德運用抒情的和同情的筆觸描寫了這部極具震撼力的關於母女間的忠誠與背叛，愛和救贖的故事。”—— Ursula Hegi,《Stones From the River /來自河流的石頭》的作者Ursula Hegi
A lyrical investigation into the unreliability and elusiveness of memory centers Greenwood’s second novel (after Breathing Water), the intriguing tale of Miranda ("Indie") Brown’s examination of her baffling and disconcerting childhood memories and of her coming to terms with a strange psychological disorder. Indie, at 33, is living a contented life in Echo Hollow, Maine, with Peter, her lover of 14 years, who owns a restaurant/art film house. Everything changes when she receives a telephone call from her youngerAand prettierAsister, Lily: their mother has been hospitalized, with the diagnosis of poison, possibly self-administered. Since Lily can’t leave her gravely ill infant daughter, Violet, who lives in an oxygen tent, Indie takes Ma from the hospital back home to the Arizona mountains. As Indie starts to reflect on events from her past that continue to affect the present, she becomes aware of how varieties of the Munchausen syndrome (disorders that cause sufferers to induce illness in themselves and in others) have shaped her family’s lives. What really happened when four-year-old Indie was struck by lightning, and why exactly did Indie’s and Lily’s older brother die? What caused Lily’s many childhood illnesses, and what about baby Violet’s? Lily was her mother’s favorite, while Indie grew up attached to her father, in whose bar she learned to shoot pool and drink too much. She believes that her encounter with lightning gave her special abilities to "taste sounds" and to catch "at least a glimpse of the truth" that eludes others. As her personal history reveals itself, Indie may find herself no less haunted by the truth than by falsehood. Greenwood can be coy with mysterious hints, but the kaleidoscopic heart of the story is rich with evocative details about its heroine’s inner life. ---From Publishers Weekly

Greenwood won the 1999 Sherwood Anderson Award for Best First Novel for Breathing Water. Her compelling new work should win similar acclaim. The novel opens with a flashback to the narrator, then four years old, sitting in a metal cart in the grocery store parking lot while her mother carries the baby back inside the store for a forgotten item. A storm comes up, and Indie’s grocery cart is struck by lightning. But to hear her mother tell the story, she turned her back on Indie for only a second, and the child would have surely died had her mother not acted quickly. Indie, brother Benny, and especially baby sister Lily have many close calls throughout their childhood. Now Lily is a mother, and her daughter Violet is plagued with many illnesses and has come close to death more than once in her first year of life. Is Lily re-enacting her own childhood? Indie must try to make sense of both the past and the present, and quickly. Highly recommended for public libraries and for academic libraries collecting contemporary fiction.DDebbie Bogenschutz, Cincinnati State Technical & Community Coll.---From Library Journal

About the Author/作者介绍： T. Greenwood出生於佛蒙特州。她是《Breathing Water/潺潺流水》的作者，該書獲得1999年榮獲舍伍德 安德森基金會獎。她和丈夫Patrick Stewart住在加州海灘。
T. Greenwood was born in Vermont. She is the author of Breathing Water and the 1999 recipient of the Sherwood Anderson Foundation Award. She lives in Ocean Beach, California with her husband, Patrick Stewart.

Format:TRADE PAPERBACK

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