About this product

Product Identifiers

PublisherRandom House Publishing Group

ISBN-10037550799X

ISBN-139780375507991

eBay Product ID (ePID)24038259947

Product Key Features

Book TitleOur Father Who Art in a Tree : a Novel

Number of Pages208 Pages

LanguageEnglish

Publication Year2003

TopicPsychological, Family Life, General

GenreFiction

AuthorJudy Pascoe

FormatHardcover

Dimensions

Item Height0.7 in

Item Weight9.1 Oz

Item Length7.5 in

Item Width4.9 in

Additional Product Features

Intended AudienceTrade

LCCN2002-021317

Dewey Edition21

Reviews"In deceptively simple prose and through the eyes of a wise child, Judy Pascoe has captured the large mysteries of the depths of hope in this richly imagined portrait of grief and overcoming." -- Martha McPhee, author of Gorgeous Lies and Bright Angel Time "If faith is the acceptance of things unseen and hope lies in the anticipation of things unknown, then Pascoe's portrayal of one family's grief-stricken struggle affirms the resiliency of the human spirit when faith is sorely tested and hope is nearly lostâ€¦. With a child's innocent acceptance and shrewd perception, Simone poignantly conveys the confusion that besets survivors: how to accept the past and embrace the future. Pascoe endows her narrator with a precocious wisdom and plaintive wistfulness in this uncommon exploration of the nature of love and loss." -- Booklist "In this magical tale, Judy Pascoe looks through the eyes of a 10-year-old at a world full of spiritual and emotional mystery." -- Punch (U.K.) "This might sound like a story of an unhinged mother and daughter but it's much more than that. It's a rites of passage novel told through Simone's eyes and she vividly brings to life that hot, tropical summer in 1960s suburban Brisbane when the O'Neill family struggled to get on with life without their husband and father. It was a time when neighbours did help each other, when doors were unlocked and life was simpler and the spirit world was never far awayâ€¦. Judy Pascoe is a fresh new voice and this warm, funny, mad and sad novel is an unexpected delight." -- Good Reading magazine (Australia)

Dewey Decimal823/.92

Synopsis"It was simple for me, the saints were in heaven and guardian angels had extendable wings like Batman and my dad had died and gone to live in the tree in the backyard." So begins this richly metaphorical, deeply affecting novel about a family, and how loss and grief can be moved through and overcome. In a voice reminiscent of Scout Finch, the narrator of To Kill a Mockingbird, Simone observes with candor and fresh insight the ways in which her mother, brothers, neighbors, and community deal with the death of her father. While her mother stares blankly into space, functioning only on the most basic level, and her older brother buries himself in schoolwork, Simone conceives the idea that her father's spirit lives in the tree in the backyard. She can go out there, climb up and sit in the tree's branches, and listen as her father talks to her. It is only when Simone's mother takes on a suitor that a confrontation is forced between the power of the past and the hope of new life in the future. Rich in understanding about the power of love, the spirit, and belief, imbued with unexpected truths about people's deep levels of connection and feeling, and written in prose that combines lyricism with rare humor and insight, Our Father Who Art in a Tree is a wonderful debut novel that deals in a profound and unusual way with some of the eternal themes in fiction, and in life.

LC Classification NumberPR9619.4.P37O97 2003