Facts speak for themselves

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

A powerful and devastatingly honest story from a prize-winning author. This is the story of how thirteen year old Linda came to be involved in the murder of one man and the suicide of another. Living with her wayward mother, it's up to Linda to care for first one, then two younger brothers. As her mother moves from job to job and man to man, Linda finds herself growing up in a world where her vulnerability is no match for the endless abuse that leaves her with a wisdom and bitterness far beyond her years. Compelling, distressing, powerful and shocking, this is Linda's account of the facts. Facts that reveal a startling and unforgettable heroine whose deceptively simple narrative voice makes for the most incredible novel. A moving and brutal tale of an extraordinary girl you will never forget.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Publishers Weekly Review

Readers are given a lot to digest in the first chapter of this stream-of-consciousness narrative told from the point of view of 13-year-old Linda. The novel opens when Linda, who has just witnessed the murder of her middle-aged lover, enters a police station with blood under her fingernails. The killer (her mother's boyfriend) has shot himself. The facts of the murder unfold as Linda reports them during a police interrogation; the balance of the novel shifts from what Linda reports to her social worker, to what Linda reports to the reader of her experiences in "the Center," a benevolent home for girls run by nuns. Cole (Celine) is a master at creating narrative hooks, but despite the alluring start, the tale gradually loses momentum as Linda's woeful history unfurls through her emotionless statements of "facts." The content is intense and gripping (most of the book relates Linda's relationship with an irresponsible mother and her mother's string of seedy boyfriends, including Linda's father, who committed suicide in his truck years ago). But Linda does not reflect on what has happened to her (e.g., naïve to its implications, she is unfazed when molested by one of her mother's boyfriends), which may leave the reader feeling apathetic right along with Linda. The one area in which Linda does express emotion is toward her little brothers (she is their primary caretaker). Teenagers, who may be dazed by the string of traumas, may have trouble discerning or caring about Linda's underlying emotions. But the pointed bleakness of the novel may be most difficult for those teens who recognize themselves (or someone they know) in Linda‘they will find no answers in the dilemma posed here. Ages 12-up. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

School Library Journal Review

Gr 9 Up‘In this impeccably crafted novel, a 13 year old describes the sordid entanglements of the adults in her life that resulted in a murder-suicide. Unsettling, even horrifying, yet totally believable. (Oct.) (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Booklist Review

Gr. 9^-12. Facts of Life There have always been books that have pushed the envelope of children's literature. Think Harriet the Spy or Annie on My Mind. Lately, however, there are a number of titles that are pushing the envelope with a difference. Often stunningly written, this new category of books takes on subject matter so enigmatic, in some cases so adult in theme, that there is a nagging question of audience. In a future issue of Booklist, Stephanie Zvirin and I will explore this phenomenon of books that fit so uncomfortably into the literature. But here is a review of one book, Brock Cole's The Facts Speak for Themselves, that certainly falls into that category. It's a book that you'll be hearing a lot about. You probably already have. Perhaps a murder is the obvious outcome of 13-year-old Linda's story. That's the first thing readers learn about her, anyway. She is standing with Mr. Joe Greene in a deserted parking lot when Mr. Frank Perry comes up and shoots him. Perry is her mother's lover. Greene is Linda's. Linda is removed to a Catholic Charities home, where she likes the structure, but she thinks the way the caseworker is presenting her case makes her look like a "stupid fool." She wants to tell her own story, so she takes readers back to the beginning. In an unemotional voice that is the touchstone of the story, Linda recounts her life to the point of the murder. Linda is the daughter of Sandra, a college dropout, and Charles, a Native American who commits suicide. Sandra, a former cheerleader and all-around good girl, has chosen Charles as the personification of her rebellion. In a brilliant vignette, Sandra and Linda briefly return home to Minnesota. The atmosphere there is so stifling, it becomes clear why Sandra has chosen to do whatever she can to disappoint her family. As Linda recounts her life, she grows up quickly--emotionally, financially, and sexually. When her mother doesn't come home one night, her father tells her that Sandra is with a man who is "sticking his dinkus up your mama's pussy." Later, one of Sandra's boyfriends, using his finger, does the same to then eight-year-old Linda. And what is Linda doing through all this? Taking charge, mostly. A baby is born to Sandra and is immediately abandoned by his preppy father. Sandra reports that she has learned to "Cease Striving." So Linda learns to cook and change diapers. Help finally comes from an unlikely source, a much older man, the father of one of Sandra's high-school classmates. He takes the family to Florida, and for a while, life is good. Linda learns how to play the stock market from Mr. Bloomberg, and Sandra has a brush with society life--though her Jewish husband turns out to be more a hindrance than a help. But soon a stroke renders Mr. Bloomberg too old, and Sandra gets bored. Linda, furious that her mother would leave Mr. Bloomberg, who's exhibiting signs of irrationality, opts to stay. Like a dream that turns into a nightmare, Linda's life becomes ever more complicated as she tries to take care of Mr. Bloomberg, keep the authorities away from them, and maintain enough composure to avoid hitting him. Finally, when that situation falls apart, Linda returns to her pregnant mother, now living with Frank Perry. Frank thinks he will make his fortune producing plywood animals. Sandra takes a job at Joe Greene's realty firm, a job that has been offered because Joe has fallen for Linda. Joe and Linda start an affair that is eventually discovered by Joe's wife. Sandra tells Frank what has happened, and Frank, who feels Joe has everything Franks wants, including Linda, shoots him. These are the facts. As Cole sets them forth in Linda's unemotional voice, they are more than compelling. Readers can hardly tear their eyes from the pages. It is Cole's skill in maintaining Linda's straightforward narrative, the juxtaposition between the shocking and the everyday details, that makes the recounting of Linda's story such a triumph--and it is the re

Horn Book Review

(Intermediate) Michael Dorris's adult novels Yellow Raft in Blue Water and Cloud Chamber chronicle the deceptions and betrayals that nearly destroy a family, generation after generation. Yellow Raft in Blue Water moves from the present generation of fifteen-year-old Rayona back through two generations of women on her maternal side, while Cloud Chamber opens in nineteenth-century Ireland and moves forward through five generations of Rayona's paternal family. Whereas these two books convey how suffocating and harmful relationships can be, The Window throws itself open to the strengths of familial bonds. From the moment eleven-year-old Rayona sits by the window waiting for the return of her frequently delinquent mother, this novel pulsates forward with an energy and wit that never falters. In lively contrast to Dorris's more somber historical novels for children, the seemingly cocky but vulnerable and emotionally needy Rayona narrates this short novel with a breezy, spunky voice. When her Indian mother does not return from her latest binge to declare their usual "National Holiday" (on which she and Rayona can eat breakfast for supper and practice being best friends), Rayona's philandering black father informs her that her mother has checked into a rehab center, but that he is unable to care for Rayona. Her foster placement with the relentlessly cheerful Potters (Rayona is amazed to discover that "there are actual people like this who aren't on a weekly sitcom") proves short-lived and disastrous; placement with the stolid Mrs. Jackson turns to unexpected fun for them both but is likewise cut short. Rayona senses that her father, in talking with her about his family (with whom she will live next) is "leaving something out, some detail, some secret within a secret, but I am so anxious to find out what happened next, to get to the 'me' part, that I let it go by." The Window is all the "me part," keeping the exuberant narrator squarely in the middle as she finds her place in the secrets of her family. Rayona soon learns that her grandmother (her father's mother) is white-a fact he tells Rayona when he is taking her to meet her grandmother for the first time. Rayona resolves not to miss another word for the rest of her life. Sitting in the window seat of the airplane, she understands that she will never again "be able to look out a small window and see [her] whole world from it." With the introduction of Rayona's great-grandmother, the ancient and proper Mamaw, her sensible and wise Aunt Edna, and her grandmother Marcella (a "vanilla Hostess cupcake" of a woman), Dorris's novel becomes yet more unguarded as these three women embrace their young relative with unconditional love. No scene feels more genuinely celebratory than when her aunt and grandmother travel west with Rayona to return her home. Having installed a device atop their car to provide cool air-a contrivance that re-quires the windows to be rolled up-the three must shout to be heard, causing a cacophony of "beg your pardons." When Grand-mother opens the window, thinking to be chastised but instead winning the approval of everyone as the cooler sails away, all three break into hilarity and song. Without glos-sing over the hurt and pain of parental abandonment, this novel of open win-dows is a joy, a "national holiday" to which we can return any day of the week. s.p.b. Picture Books Marc Brown Arthur's Computer Disaster; illus. by the author (Preschool, Younger) Arthur knows he's not supposed to be using his mother's computer, but the lure of Deep, Dark Sea, "the greatest game in the universe," is irresistible. Predictably, the computer breaks; luckily, it's easy to fix; reassuringly, Mom is not mad, just disappointed. She decrees that there will be no computer gaming for a week-at least for Arthur: "'I'll be right up,' called Mom. 'As soon as I blast these skeletons from the treasure chest.'" "Adapted by Marc Brown from a teleplay by Joe Fallon," this story of mild disaster followed by mild reproof will be a pleasant diversion for fans of the popular TV personality. r.s. Eve Bunting Ducky; illus. by David Wisniewski (Preschool) David Wisniewski's Caldecott-winning paper-cutting talents get a comedic workout here, illustrating Bunting's slightly sly text about a plastic duck who, along with thousands of fellow bathtub toys, is washed overboard when a storm hits the freighter ferrying them across the ocean (Bunting supplies a note about the factual event that inspired the story). The duck tells the story ("Our ship has disappeared. The sea is big, big, big. Oh, I am scared!"), including an unfortunate encounter with a shark ("It shakes its head and spits us out. I expect we are not too tasty, though we are guaranteed non-toxic") and the basic existential dilemma of a bathtub toy out of its element: "I wish we could swim and get away. But all we can do is float." The ocean's currents eventually bring the duck to shore alongside many of his compatriots, and he finally achieves his destiny, floating in the security of a bubblebath. This is an out-of-the way excursion for both author and illustrator, and if Wisniewski's pictures are sometimes too weighty for Bunting's buoyant text, they are certainly splashy enough. r.s. H Peter Collington A Small Miracle (Younger) The creator of On Christmas Eve (reviewed 11/90) revisits that significant night in another masterfully executed wordless picture book. The artist's trademark sequential frames make the experience of turning the pages like watching a movie; this time it's a gripping, matter-of-factly magical story of charity and selflessness rewarded. In the midst of a bustling, prosperous contemporary village, a desperate old woman loses every-thing when she sells her sole prized possession-her accordion-and then is robbed. On her way home, she encounters the same thief attempting (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Kirkus Book Review

A brilliantly crafted, shocking account, narrated by a teenager, of her mother's chronic incompetence and her own sexual abuse; it will slice readers to the bone less for its tragic details than for the casual, ingenuous tone in which they are revealed. In an indignant response to a social worker's unflattering report, Linda, 13, describes how, after the death of her father, she cared for first one, and then two, brothers as her mother took up with a succession of men, abandoned her for months to a senile widower, and found a job at last, working for a married businessman, Jack Green, who ultimately seduced Linda. Rejecting the social worker's contention that she was raped, Linda claims to have felt only mild impatience with Green the first time, and her childish pleasure at his gifts and toys is clear. She admits to no strong feelings even after Green is murdered, although her sometimes violent actions contradict her reasonable tone; hints that some of her ``facts'' may be imaginary only deepen the contrast. Readers may admire Linda for maintaining even an illusion of control, but will also see that she has inherited her mother's bad judgment, and that neither her story nor her promises can be trusted--a recipe for a troubled future. A raw, powerful character study of someone trying to construct a particular version of reality, and failing, because the ``facts'' tell a different story. Cole shows real literary chops in a book whose aesthetic merits outrun, by far, the ethics police. (Fiction. 13-16)