Product Description

With the same winning combination of humor and honesty that marked her recent nonfiction bestsellers, Operating Instructions and Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott's new novel gives us an exuberant, richly absorbing portrait of a family for whom the joys and sorrows of everyday life are magnified under the glare of the unexpected.

Rosie Ferguson, in the first bloom of young womanhood, is obsessed with tournament tennis. Her mother is a recovering alcoholic still grieving the death of her first husband; her stepfather, a struggling writer, is wrestling with his own demons. And now Rosie finds that her athletic gifts, once a source of triumph and escape, place her in peril, as a shadowy man who stalks her from the bleachers seems to be developing an obsession of his own.

Crooked Little Heart asks big questions in intimate ways: What keeps a family together? What are the small heartbreaks that tear at the fabric of our lives? What happens to grief when it goes underground? And what road must we walk with our flawed and crooked hearts?

Brilliantly written, inhabited by superbly realized characters, funny and human and wonderfully suspenseful, Crooked Little Heart is Anne Lamott writing at the peak of her considerable powers.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #87832 in Books
• Published on: 1998-05-18
• Released on: 1998-05-18
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

Amazon.com Review
At 13, Rosie plays a gangly, pigeon-toed second fiddle to her juicy, sexy friend Simone. The two are junior tennis champs who often cart home trophies. But driven by the gnawing fear that she's a loser, Rosie starts to cheat. Meantime, boy-crazy Simone dabbles in off-court disaster. Up in the bleachers a weird loner named Luther obsessively follows Rosie's games, while at home her mother wrestles her own demons. Anne Lamott (Operating Instructions) has turned in a fair depiction of the blood and bones of adolescence that's thankfully leavened by sharp humor and transcendent moments. The novel is uneven and heavy-handed at times, but often rewarding.

From School Library Journal
YA. Some girls, like Rosie's friend and doubles partner on the Northern California tennis circuit, enter adolescence with young womanly grace and appeal; others?like Rosie?find the onset of metamorphosing body and questionable social status fraught with a seemingly endless string of bad days. Lamott has a keen ear and reportorial skill for this sort of age-and-gender-driven angst. She embues Rosie's mother and adult friends with that same understanding. Although they have problems of their own, but they provide Rosie with admirable support that encourages her maturation rather than suffocating her with overwhelming concern. Interestingly, this novel features a great female tennis player who deals with her own cheating, a similar situation to that found in Marcia Byalick's YA novel, It's a Matter of Trust (Browndeer, 1995). Both well-written books speak to readers who have little interest in tennis while providing those who love the game with some lively scenes of the sport. Older girls will enjoy Lamott's newest offering, and may well wax envious at Rosie's family's understanding. That her 14-year-old friend is less lucky in the end, while seemingly having the better draw at the outset, lends a fairy-tale moral quality that embellishes the whole, rather than detracting from its power.?Francisca Goldsmith, Berkeley Public Library, CA
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Those who have read Lamott's Bird by Bird (LJ 8/94) will not be surprised to see that here her sentences are crafted with lapidary precision and humor. She is generous to her characters, more than balancing their fears and flaws with courage and virtues. Championship tennis player Rosie is 13, struggling with her ambition, impending womanhood, and a completely normal, complex relationship with her mother, Elizabeth. Simone, Rosie's doubles partner, has her own difficult issues to address. Though Elizabeth's second marriage to a kind and loving man is happy, neither she nor Rosie have completely worked through their grief at the sudden death of Rosie's father. Issues of character and sportsmanship, teenage sexuality and responsibility, and the importance of love and friendship are gently explored. Very little happens in terms of external events (although one pregnant teen might disagree), but internally, Rosie, her family, and Simone all change, pretty much for the better. Recommended.?Judith Kicinski, Sarah Lawrence Coll. Lib, Bronxville, N.Y.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

The book I knew Lamott could write!
In my other reveiw of "Rosie", the prequel to this book, I was rather hard on Lamott. Her non fiction, Travelling Mercies, Bird by Bird, Operating Instructions, is so compassionate, witty, and funny, that it is hard to believe that she wrote Rosie and Hard Laughter. This book is finally the work of fiction I believed that she could produce.

It follows the story of Rosie during the summer of her 13th year, and trials and tribulations that are realistic and engaging. Although the focus on tennis was a little too detailed and technical, the rest of the story is wrapped around it in tenderness and diverts the focus from that aspect.

Although somewhat similar to Nabokov's Lolita in theme, this book explores in full the lives of each main character. You can more clearly see the effects of the events that occurred in Rosie, and they are painted more brilliantly and lovingly.

The characters are easy to identify with. There's Rae who weaves beautiful tapestries with junk yarn, but seems to want to do the same with the junky men in her lives. There's Rosie who lives in frustrated teenage self-doubt. There's Elizabeth, who sinks and struggles and is, all in all, extremely irritating. Then, there's Luthor, the Steppenwolf of the story, who is dark and scary and mysterious, but has insight that Rosie desperately needs.

You will find in reading this that the details of daily life are irresistably and eloquently captured - the feeling of laying with your lover knees bent into knees, the shine of dust particles in the light of the window, the fight that explodes and dissipates and the feeling of relief when love comes again.

With a compassionate pen, Lamott sculpts their world not out of epic ideas or fantastic adventure, but in the love and angst and peace and war and tribulation and triumph of every day life. She finds the beauty and pain in it, and gives it the no-frills homage it deserves.

Crooked Little Heart led me to examine myself more closely through the characters and their actions, and also provided me with basic tenets of living that I will cherish.

A thought provoking book, with great ideas and beautiful writing, I rate Crooked Little Heart five stars, as a read that will warm your heart, make you laugh, and edify your life.

Could Lamott BE any more gifted?!
I re-read this book recently and was pleased to find that I wasn't wrong about it the first time: it's wonderful, just as satisfying as any of the others, although I am partial to each new book as it arrives, like a gorgeous newborn. I didn't read Crooked Little Heart, I absorbed it. I fell in love with Rae and Lank -- their love story is one of the most poignant ones I have ever read. I know they will end up together. I just know it. I am dying to know more about Rae, actually. Will James ever learn to dress? Will any of us? Keep it up, Anne.

From Title to End...
In the six months since I read CLH, I have thought of pieces of it hundreds of times. I think Anne Lamott is an amazing writer, one of the best contemporary American writers we have, along with Fred Chappell, Louise Erdrich, Kaye Gibbons, and Lee Smith, to name a few. I think with any piece of fiction the reader must be willing to enter the author's constructed world on their terms. I loved the title of CLH and wanted to know all that lay behind it. Also, I knew I liked Lamott's writing from some of her nonfiction. So, I kept going even though it took me several chapters to become fully engaged in the story. I find so much of her imagery and metaphor incredible that even without caring about tennis at all, I wanted to keep going. Plus, I trusted her to take me somewhere worthwhile. And she did. I love that Luther tells Rosie, You're not a cheater. You're someone who cheated. I saw so much compassion and honesty in that exchange. I think it's what the book was written for, and that it is more than enough to justify the story's length. Another of my favorite lines is also near the end, where Rosie tells Elizabeth, We're not like a real family, we're like some family you'd buy at a garage sale. (This may not be exact, I do not have the book with me). By that time, you realize that Lamott is saying most real families are that way, and that's the beauty of the thing--along with the fact that Rosie as an adolescent is not yet fully aware of how much of life really is like something you get at a garage sale and make do with and come to love devotedly.