Zazoo

by Richard Mosher Narrated by Joanna Wyatt

Overview

Zazoo is Vietnamese by birth but feels entirely French. She has lived with her adoptive Grand-Pierre in France in an old stone mill between the river and the canal since she was two, sharing poetry, adventures, and the predictable rhythms of the seasons. Then one misty October morning, a young man on a bicycle rides into Zazoo's small village and asks a question from which many stories begin to unfold. A love story within a love story.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

The quiet banks of a French canal, where this book is set, perfectly matches the reflective quality of Mosher's (The Taxi Navigator) resonant prose. With exquisite tenderness, the author explores the revelations of a Vietnamese-born girl raised by her adoptive grandfather, Grand-Pierre. A chance meeting with a mysterious Parisian boy sets 13-year-old Zazoo on a course to excavate secrets from the "Awful time," when Nazis invaded France. The horrors over a half-century ago echo the disturbing changes Zazoo now experiences, like the chronic ache in her chest and Grand-Pierre's failing health. Metaphors from nature the deceptively calm river, a "sad gray cat" from long ago and an ancient owl symbolize connections between past and present and emphasize the dull pain of longing still lingering with Grand-Pierre and other villagers. Despite the novel's somber undertones, there is a promise of rebirth as love, compassion and forgiveness help heal old wounds. The author's intelligent yet accessible wordplay on French vocabulary also leavens the narrative. Readers will be swept away by the evocative images and emotive scenes in this story, offering a mix of bitter and sweet. Ages 12-up. (Oct.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

Set on a French canal, this novel stars a Vietnamese-born girl who excavates secrets from when the Nazis invaded France. "Readers will be swept away by the evocative images and emotive scenes in this story, offering a mix of bitter and sweet," wrote PW in a starred review. Ages 13-up. (June) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

School Library Journal

Gr 6-10-Brought from her Vietnamese homeland when she was a toddler, 13-year-old Zazoo lives with her adoptive grandfather in France. Their home is an old, stone mill and together they work as lockkeepers on the nearby canal. From the girl's earliest memories, Grand-Pierre has composed poetry with her. Zazoo swims late into the autumn and she loves exploring the local waters in a boat the old man has made for her. Just as soon as the ice is set, they skate by moonlight on the canal. However, Grand-Pierre is undeniably slowing down and with his memory failing, Zazoo has assumed the role of a caregiver. She listens in the night to steer him away from the closet when he needs the bathroom and she spends hours with him, gazing out onto the canal, reminding him of the poems they once recited together. During an early-morning swim, Zazoo meets Marius, an intriguing 16-year-old stranger who questions her about the village pharmacist. The girl befriends the cultured and kindly Monsieur Klein, who holds the key to unlocking the hidden conflicts of her grandfather's younger years. Considered a hero of the Resistance, Grand-Pierre knows the folly of such labels. His story of trauma and loss unfolds through Zazoo's gentle questions and through her growing friendship with Monsieur Klein. As she sorts through the emotions that past tragedies resurrect, she also holds out hope for future meetings with Marius. Zazoo is a beautiful and lyrical novel, with poetry woven throughout. It is a story of love, devotion, and unwavering commitment that bridges generations and cultures.-Alison Follos, North Country School, Lake Placid, NY Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

A slow and almost dreamlike exploration of the myriad ways that the past-especially a cataclysmic past-informs the present. Zazoo, almost 14 at the opening, was adopted from Vietnam at the age of two and lives in an old mill by a French canal with the man she calls Grand-Pierre; he's the lock-keeper. As Grand-Pierre's memory fades, a mysterious and attractive young man bicycles into Zazoo's life, asking questions. Soon Zazoo finds herself probing the past that created her Grand-Pierre, M. Klein, the elderly Jewish pharmacist who alone among the villagers shows no love for Grand-Pierre, and herself, orphaned by a landmine in a later war. Mosher's (The Taxi Navigator, 1996) sense of setting is luminous, and the descriptions of life along the canal evoke Wind in the Willows in their watery beauty. The slow revelation of the many intertwined personal histories is truly elegant, and the several love stories that emerge are almost painfully romantic. Zazoo's voice is honest and distinct as she tells her story; the secondary characters develop with real three-dimensional complexity as well. This is a story of memory and contemplation, not action, with most of the elements unfolding slowly over the course of a year through dialogue and reminiscence. It is perhaps over-constructed in its piecing together of the various plot elements and its drive to tie them up neatly by the end, but patient readers will find themselves forgiving this and the slow pace in their involvement with the language and the characters' evolving relationships, particularly the glorious symbiosis achieved by Zazoo and her Grand-Pierre. (Fiction. YA)

From the Publisher

A slow and almost dreamlike exploration of the myriad ways that the past—especially a cataclysmic past—informs the present. . . .The slow revelation of the many intertwined personal histories is truly elegant, and the several love stories that emerge are almost painfully romantic. Zazoo's voice is honest and distinct as she tells her story; the secondary characters develop with real three-dimensional complexity as well. This is a story of memory and contemplation, not action, with most of the elements unfolding slowly over the course of a year through dialogue and reminiscence.
Kirkus Reviews with Pointers

From the very first paragraph, Mosher's vivid imagery makes Zazoo's world come to life. . . .This book is her tale, a romance with a little history thrown in, and it is told well.
VOYA (Voice of Youth Advocates)

Zazoo is a beautiful and lyrical novel, with poetry woven throughout. It is a story of love, devotion, and unwavering commitment that bridges generations and cultures.
School Library Journal, Starred

A lyrical book about memory and living with loss.
SLJ Best Books of the Year

Readers will be swept away by the evocative images and emotive scenes in this story, offering a mix of bitter and sweeet.
Publishers Weekly, Starred

[T]his finely crafted novel, told in Zazoo's authentic first-person narrative, speaks to more than one message; it also evokes the quiet passage of the seasons and the joys of friendship. A novel with a big message well told through the smallest details.
Booklist, ALA

Product Details

BN ID:	2940172134814
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	07/23/2002
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

1 A New Look at How People Really Solve Drinking Problems If your best friend turned to you for advice about a drinking problem, what would you say? The automatic reaction of most people, nonprofessionals and treatment specialists alike, would likely be "Get yourself to AA." But is this truly the best response for that individual — is it the only solution? We've all heard so many things about recovery, but are they really true?

To find out how people whose lives have been troubled by alcohol have overcome their difficulties, I decided to turn to the foremost experts — those who have actually done it, people who have mastered their former alcohol problems in different ways.* I wanted to determine exactly what these "masters" did — what specific strategies they used — to get sober and stay sober. My call for information was answered by hundreds whose drinking at its worst ranged from what many of us might define as a social drinker's quota to more than a fifth of hard liquor a day. (All of the 222 masters completed a seven-page questionnaire about their drinking pasts, the turning points, how they resolved their alcohol problems, and how they got on with their lives.)

Who Are the Masters?

The masters came to me through postage-paid flyers distributed in public places across the country, advertisements and listings in newspapers and special-interest magazines, postings on the Internet, and recovery groups. Some masters knew me or had heard about my work through a friend.

They come from all walks of life — they're attorneys, maintenance workers, former topless dancers, college professors, physicians, schoolteachers, homemakers, engineers, judges,former bartenders, current bartenders, nurses, and journalists. They're Christians and atheists, gay and straight, people from their twenties to their eighties who got sober anywhere from their teens through their fifties and sixties. They include husbands and wives who got sober together as well as a mother and her two grown children who all quit on their own but at different times. A quarter of them are recovery group leaders, mental health professionals, and/or chemical dependency counselors, so they know sobriety from both ends, as former problem drinkers and as experienced helpers of those who are still struggling. Gender-wise, there is close to an even split: 54 percent of the masters are men and 46 percent are women.

Along with stories of people who were rendered destitute because of their drinking, I wanted to include the experiences of people with mild or moderate alcohol problems, because little help is available for them, despite the fact that they are thought to outnumber stereotypical brown-bag "alcoholics" by three or four to one. Therefore, the stories of the masters' drinking days vary from sagas of high-functioning drinkers who were able to raise families and move upward professionally despite their alcohol abuse to those of hard-core "drunks" who describe loss of jobs, health, children, and dignity. The masters' drinking at its worst ranged from a reported three to five daily drinks for some people up to two daily quarts of vodka for one man.

At the lower end of the scale, Janet C. (who believes she was "chiefly mentally addicted" to alcohol but considers herself to be an "alcoholic" nonetheless) typically had two or three single-shot martinis before dinner and one or two scotches with soda afterward —

surely beyond healthy drinking, but not what most people think of when they picture the stereotypical "alcoholic." Although she felt that her drinking kept her from being a good parent to her two teenagers, she was always responsible enough to know that she "didn't dare drive" them around in the evenings.

At the other extreme, the two-quart-a-day vodka drinker, George M., attributes all of the following to his drinking: "My wife left me; I lost my career, my possessions, my teeth, and much of my eyesight; my friends disappeared. I lived in a spare bedroom in my mother's house, soiled the bed often, had drunk driving and disorderly conduct arrests, and was suicidal." (With the help of AA, he has been sober for more than five years now.) Like George, a number of other masters once abused drugs such as marijuana and cocaine in addition to alcohol. For all but five of them, alcohol was the drug of choice.

Nearly all of the masters have been continuously sober for five or more years;* the average length of sobriety for the entire group is just over thirteen years. Two thirds of them have at least a decade of sobriety.

Sobriety Means Different Things to Different People For most of the masters, sobriety is synonymous with abstinence. For the vast majority, abstinence turns out to be the best policy: nine out of ten are totally abstinent.

Others have a small amount of alcohol on very rare occasions - - say, when making a toast at a wedding reception. About one out of ten of the masters are near-abstinent, occasional, or moderate drinkers, which challenges the notion that one sip of alcohol will lead you back to full-blown "alcoholism." For serious problem drinkers and those who are already contentedly abstinent, however, consuming any alcohol can be a risky proposition.

While most people think of sobriety as total abstinence, Webster's Tenth Collegiate Dictionary defines "sober" not as "abstinent" but as "1 a: sparing in the use of food and drink:

abstemious. b: not addicted to intoxicating drink. c: not drunk . . .

4. marked by temperance, moderation, or seriousness." The masters whom I call sober, then, are those who have resolved their alcohol problems and gotten on top of their drinking, usually through abstinence but sometimes through moderate or occasional drinking.

I sought the masters' help in answering such questions as these:

How important is it to admit to yourself and others that you are an "alcoholic"?

Can you recover — and stay recovered — without going to a recovery group?

If you get sober with the help of a recovery group, do you have to keep going forever?

What about treatment at places like the Betty Ford Center and hospital alcohol programs — is it necessary?

Where do you turn if you have issues about your drinking but don't really feel you're an "alcoholic"?

Is it true that you have to "hit bottom" in order to become motivated to deal with a drinking problem?

Before taking action, are most people "in denial" about their drinking problems?

Do you wake up one morning and say, "That's it: I quit"? If so, what gets you to that point, and does everything else in life just kind of fall into place afterward?

Is it helpful to see yourself as forever recovering, or can you at some point think of yourself as recovered or cured?

Is it true that having just a small amount of alcohol will send you right back to where you left off in your drinking, or is having an occasional drink a possibility for some people?

What if you don't have strong religious or spiritual beliefs, such as faith in a "higher power" — can you still get sober?

Do you eventually lose your longing for alcohol, or do you pine for it forever?

I had some of my own thoughts about these matters, since over the years I have coped with and resolved my own issues with drinking.

But I wanted to find out what others who once struggled with alcohol had to say. What I learned from these masters is striking, and much of what they relate flies in the face of what we've been led to believe about "alcoholism."

Sober for Good examines the common threads among recovery stories of people who have resolved drinking problems in many different ways. A good deal of what the masters share about their triumphs over alcohol is supported by findings of experts whose research doesn't always make its way to the general public. I've interwoven these scientific findings with my discoveries about the masters.

Whether a drinking problem is serious or occasionally troublesome, the wisdom of the Sober for Good masters can help. These people offer possible solutions for those who are just wondering whether they have a drinking problem as well as for anyone who is ready to take action. They offer hope for anyone who is discouraged by the conventional route to recovery, who's looking for something different. If you're dealing with a loved one who has problems with alcohol, the words of the masters can offer insight for you as well.

(Chapter 7 is specifically for family and friends of problem drinkers.)

The masters' stories show that the road to sobriety does not always have a finite course ending in storybook abstinence. They suggest that recovery takes various shapes and forms as well as twists and turns over time and can be marked by interludes of drinking again — all in the context of a serious effort to keep drinking from interfering with a happy, functional life.

Sobriety Is More Than Not Drinking The masters' stories reveal that achieving sobriety involves much more than abandoning problem drinking — it's about taking active steps to achieve a new plane of living, to build a life with no room for alcohol abuse.

Ward R. (twenty-four years)* says his "last drunk" made him realize he had two choices: "I could either work on developing a way of life in which I didn't want to drink, or I could say ‘To hell with it' and continue drinking until I died." Ward made his choice by going to AA but using it in an unconventional way and by developing a life that has no room for drinking. He explains, "I am now retired and my life is full with traveling to other countries, exploring other cultures, being an active member of AARP, working on helping other seniors deal with telemarketing con artists, planning on being a volunteer deputy sheriff, being a member of a gun club, working with other recovering alcoholics, learning how to use the Internet, and remodeling a fixer- upper house I bought. I just don't have time to sit in a tavern or bar."

Marisa S. (seven years, with the help of Women for Sobriety)

says, "Without alcohol, I can be the person I want to be. I have gotten back into my career and have done extremely well, become passionate about my gardening and landscaping, started traveling for pleasure. I can answer the phone or the door without worrying whether I'll give myself away — ‘Am I too drunk?' or ‘Will people notice?'"

Paul V. (nine years, through AA) says, "Since I resolved my drinking problem, there isn't really an area of my life that has been unchanged. I quadrupled my income, I became an avid hunter, I am far less moody, and my relationship with God is in good order. My perceptions of everything are better."

Roxi V. (six years, with the help primarily of Secular Organizations for Sobriety but also AA) says, "I am happy and celebrate every day of my sobriety. I am a well woman." Roxi quit drinking in her mid- forties and since has gone back to school and gotten her M.S. degree.

Best of all, she states, "I've grown as a person. I've become and am becoming the real Roxi, and I like me."

As Regina S. says, the masters have "built a life where drinking doesn't fit in." These are their stories.

Copyright © 2001 by Anne M. Fletcher All rights reserved Houghton Mifflin Company

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