Brass Ring

✍ Scribed by Chamberlain, Diane

• Book ID: 107176581
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Year: 1994
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 371 KB
• Category: Fiction

✦ Synopsis

From Publishers Weekly

Chamberlain's latest novel (after Private Relations) is an empathic but honey-coated tale of one woman's journey into her long-buried past, and of the lingering impact of her disturbing discoveries. Therapists Claire Harte-Mathias and her husband, Jon, a wheelchair-bound paraplegic, seem to have a perfect marriage-and a perfect partnership, counseling trauma victims and their families. But one night, the couple witness a suicide, which eventually prompts Claire to question her willfully optimistic view of life. She is plagued by murky, incomplete but menacing images and memories from her past, and she is forced to face the issue of her long-lost sister: Where is she? Who is she, now? The narrative shuttles back and forth from Claire's increasingly distressed mental state to that of physician Vanessa Gray, who counsels victims of childhood sexual abuse in Seattle; she, too, has unfinished business regarding childhood memories. Throughout, Chamberlain presents a grab bag of serious issues-including child abuse, rape, wife-abuse and anorexia-but her method makes them unthreatening: here, people rarely sit down to a session of painful memory retrieval without a cup of steaming coffee or some fragrant onion soup. Though there's a comforting quality to Chamberlain's set pieces and she's a sufficiently deft plotter to juggle Claire and Vanessa's stories while maintaining suspense, most readers will have trouble crediting the ease with which her characters make their ways through thickets of painful memory to be returned to their former lives, enriched and strengthened. Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club alternate.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Estranged sisters Clair and Vanessa are victims of past abuse; one remembers, and the other does not. The story opens with a woman standing on the outside edge of the Harpers Ferry Bridge. Clair, a self-help lecturer, tries-to no avail-to talk the woman down. The woman's suicide begins a gradual release of memories that almost destroy Clair's marriage and self-image. Vanessa, on the other hand, has always remembered her abuse and her abuser. She is now a doctor and has learned to live with her traumatic memory, although she carries around the guilt and shame. Vanessa's abuser is now a senator who can help release federal funds for one of her dearly fought-for projects, a victim abuse program for teenagers. Chamberlain's (Fire and Rain, LJ 5/1/93) well-written, suspenseful novel is sure to circulate.
Dawn Anderson, North Richland Hills P.L., Tex.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.