To offset studying nutrition for kidney disease, I spent a good part of the weekend sitting in the sunshine reading at Jamaica Pond. I can’t remember the last time I read a novel in two days. Peter Rock’s My Abandonment stirred me up.
As a reader, I will forgive a certain amount of poor writing if the story is compelling. But I didn’t have to with this book. The themes, psychology, and language are as intriguing as the plot. The book is based (at times not so loosely) on a father and daughter who were found living in Portland, Oregon’s Forest Park. There was no abuse, and the thirteen year old girl was found to be healthy and quite intellectually advanced for her age. The interplay between fact and fiction gives the novel a special kind of energy. I found myself thinking simultaneously about Caroline (the girl in the book), Ruth (the real-life Forest Park girl) and Rock’s writing process. Rock’s creation of an imagined reality for real people he has never met raises the ethical and emotional stakes of the book, and yet somehow avoids gimmick. A bonus for me: Rock includes plenty of satisfying touchstones that will have special resonance for anyone who knows Portland.
Sundry Sustenance 