Narrator Sadie Alexandru captures an adolescent protagonist with compassion, evoking both sorrow and shock. Violet Rue Kerrigan witnesses her brother’s involvement in a vicious attack and is disowned by her family after she tells authorities what happened. As Violet’s voice audibly matures throughout the arc of the novel, Alexandru illuminates hot-button issues of allegiance, misogyny, race, and economic disparity with a dramatist’s talent for character development. Violet’s family betrayal affects her life in heartbreaking ways, but Alexandru makes sure to allow the humanity and self-awareness of this young woman to emerge. Throughout this remarkable story of courage in the face of deep loss, Alexandru guides listeners through darkness to redemption. R.O. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine
“A painful truth of family life: the most tender emotions can change in an instant.* You think your parents love you but is it you they love, or the child who is theirs?”* --Joyce Carol Oates, My Life as a Rat
Which should prevail: loyalty to family or loyalty to the truth? Is telling the truth ever a mistake and is lying for one's family ever justified?* Can one do the right thing, but bitterly regret it?
My Life as a Rat follows Violet Rue Kerrigan, a young woman who looks back upon her life in exile from her family following her testimony, at age twelve, concerning what she knew to be the racist murder of an African-American boy by her older brothers. In a succession of vividly recalled episodes Violet contemplates the circumstances of her life as the initially beloved youngest child of seven Kerrigan children who inadvertently “informs” on her brothers, setting into motion their arrests and convictions and her own long estrangement.
Arresting and poignant, My Life as a Rat traces a life of banishment from a family-banishment from parents, siblings, and the Church-that forces Violet to discover her own identity, to break the powerful spell of family, and to emerge from her long exile as a “rat” into a transformed life.
“A painful truth of family life: the most tender emotions can change in an instant.* You think your parents love you but is it you they love, or the child who is theirs?”* --Joyce Carol Oates, My Life as a Rat
Which should prevail: loyalty to family or loyalty to the truth? Is telling the truth ever a mistake and is lying for one's family ever justified?* Can one do the right thing, but bitterly regret it?
My Life as a Rat follows Violet Rue Kerrigan, a young woman who looks back upon her life in exile from her family following her testimony, at age twelve, concerning what she knew to be the racist murder of an African-American boy by her older brothers. In a succession of vividly recalled episodes Violet contemplates the circumstances of her life as the initially beloved youngest child of seven Kerrigan children who inadvertently “informs” on her brothers, setting into motion their arrests and convictions and her own long estrangement.
Arresting and poignant, My Life as a Rat traces a life of banishment from a family-banishment from parents, siblings, and the Church-that forces Violet to discover her own identity, to break the powerful spell of family, and to emerge from her long exile as a “rat” into a transformed life.
Editorial Reviews
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940173666192 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | HarperCollins Publishers |
| Publication date: | 06/04/2019 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
Videos
