Buried Lives - Hardcover

A first novel by the author of The International Guide to Tipping , this hollow suburban suspense story lacks animation. Joy's life seems perfect on the outside: she is married to a successful lawyer, is pregnant with twins, and has just moved out of New York City and into a spacious Victorian house. Her past haunts her, though--or rather her lack of a past, since she cannot remember any of the details of her childhood. In particular, she has blocked out the kidnapping of her twin brother, Buddy. Her mother refuses to help bring the memories back, and her husband Lanny--who had been her brother's best friend and their next-door neighbor at the time of the kidnapping--insists that she is better off looking toward the future. But their new house's striking resemblance to her childhood home brings back fragments of memory, while adjusting to a new neighborhood and to pregnancy takes its toll. To make matters worse, Joy finds dead squirrels on the lawn and a mouse's head in the shower, incidents which turn out to be more than the mere pranks she initially assumes them to be. Unfortunately, Joy is devoid of personality, and her feelings about her hateful mother change for no apparent reason. Even the eventual explanation of Buddy's disappearance leaves several questions unanswered.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.