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http://worldcat.org/entity/work/id/58151299

Helpless : a novel

From the internationally acclaimed author of The White Bone and The Romantic, a haunting and suspenseful novel of abduction and obsessive love Nine-year-old Rachel Fox has the face of an angel, a heart-stopping luminosity that strikes all who meet her. Her single mother, Celia, working at a video store by day and a piano bar by night, is not always around to shield her daughter from the attention'both benign and sinister'that her beauty draws. Attention from model agencies, for example, or from Ron, a small-appliance repairman who, having seen Rachel once, is driven to see her again and again. When a summer blackout plunges the city into darkness and confusion, Rachel is taken from her home. A full-scale search begins, but days pass with no solid clues, only a phone call Celia receives from a woman whose voice she has heard before but cannot place. And as Celia fights her terror and Rachel starts to trust in her abductor's kindness, the only other person who knows where she is wavers between loyalty to the captor and saving the child. Will Rachel be found before her abductor's urge to protect and cherish turns to something altogether less innocent' Tapping into the fear that lies just below the surface of contemporary city life, Barbara Gowdy draws on her trademark empathy and precision to create a portrait of love at its most consuming and ambiguous and to uncover the volatile point at which desire gives way to the unthinkable.

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description

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  • "When the nine-year-old daughter of a hard-working single mother, a child whose luminous beauty has drawn both benign and sinister attention, is stolen from her home during a summer blackout, a full-scale search is launched, but the child's only hope lies in someone torn between loyalty to the abductor and the desire to save her."
  • "From the internationally acclaimed author of The White Bone and The Romantic, a haunting and suspenseful novel of abduction and obsessive love Nine-year-old Rachel Fox has the face of an angel, a heart-stopping luminosity that strikes all who meet her. Her single mother, Celia, working at a video store by day and a piano bar by night, is not always around to shield her daughter from the attention'both benign and sinister'that her beauty draws. Attention from model agencies, for example, or from Ron, a small-appliance repairman who, having seen Rachel once, is driven to see her again and again. When a summer blackout plunges the city into darkness and confusion, Rachel is taken from her home. A full-scale search begins, but days pass with no solid clues, only a phone call Celia receives from a woman whose voice she has heard before but cannot place. And as Celia fights her terror and Rachel starts to trust in her abductor's kindness, the only other person who knows where she is wavers between loyalty to the captor and saving the child. Will Rachel be found before her abductor's urge to protect and cherish turns to something altogether less innocent' Tapping into the fear that lies just below the surface of contemporary city life, Barbara Gowdy draws on her trademark empathy and precision to create a portrait of love at its most consuming and ambiguous and to uncover the volatile point at which desire gives way to the unthinkable."@en
  • "A young girl is abducted and her single mother fights her terror while a friend of the abductor struggles with the decision to betray personal loyalty or to save the girl."
  • "A suspenseful and haunting novel of abduction and obsessive love, comparable to Ian McEwan's A Child in Time and John Fowles's The Collector."@en
  • "A young girl is abducted and her single mother fights her terror while a friend of the abductor struggles to decide between betraying personal loyalty and saving the girl."@en
  • "Single mother Celia Fox works two jobs but is plagued by money problems; however, she never considers her daughter anything less than a blessing. She still feels a sense of amazement that the beautiful nine-year-old Rachel, who has received the attention of a local modeling agency, is really hers. But then Rachel draws the admiration of Ron, a middle-aged appliance repairman who becomes convinced that her mother is neglecting her. During a blackout, he abducts her and locks her in a room he has constructed just for her, complete with a plasma TV and a custom-made dollhouse. As the police hunt for Rachel intensifies, so do the emotions of the involved parties. Even Gowdy's secondary characters are memorable, especially Celia's kindhearted, intellectual landlord and Ron's vulnerable, ex-addict girlfriend. But her true feat is the sympathetic portrayal of Ron himself, a man who seems painfully unaware of his own dark impulses."
  • "Die neunjährige Rachel ist das große Glück in Celia Fox's Leben. Ein Kind aus einer Liebesnacht, den Vater hat sie danach nie wieder gesehen. Ein auffallend schönes und aufgewecktes Mädchen, das alle Blicke auf sich zieht, nicht nur die von Fotografen, die auf der Suche nach Models sind. Blicke, die Celia beunruhigen. Rachel weiß das und verheimlicht ihrer Mutter, dass da ein Mann in einem weißen Lieferwagen vor ihrem Haus parkt, derselbe, den sie schon vor ihrer Schule bemerkt hat. Was ist das für ein Mann, der einen Reparaturdienst für Haushaltsgeräte hat, alte Staubsauger sammelt und so oft es geht vor Schulhöfen parkt, um kleine Mädchen zu beobachten? Der einsam ist und sensibel und plötzlich von einer so heftigen Liebe zu einem Kind ergriffen wird, dass er es für sich haben will? Ein Monster?"
  • "Celia is the single mother of an exceptionally beautiful child: nine-year-old Rachel. All too aware of the precarious balance of the life she has built for the two of them, Celia worries about her daughter's longing for the father she has never met. When Rachel disappears one night during a blackout, Celia is stricken with guilt and terror. But her desperation is only half the story as Ron, the man who has taken Rachel, struggles with feelings that are at once tender, misguided and chillingly fixated."@en
  • "Celia is the struggling single mother of nine-year-old Rachel. When Rachel disappears one summer night during a blackout, Celia is stricken with guilt and terror about what her choices might now mean for her daughter's fate."@en

genre

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  • "Electronic books"@en
  • "Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945)"@en
  • "Large type books"
  • "Psychological fiction"@en
  • "Belletristische Darstellung"
  • "Fiction"@en
  • "Fiction"
  • "Opowiadanie kanadyjskie"
  • "Suspense fiction"
  • "Suspense fiction"@en

name

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  • "Navazhdenie"
  • "Helpless : a novel"@en
  • "Helpless : a novel"
  • "Helpless a novel"@en
  • "Sans personne : roman"
  • "Hilflos : Roman"
  • "Senza via d'uscita"@it
  • "Senza via d'uscita"
  • "Наваждение"
  • "Hilflos Roman"
  • "Hjelpeløs"
  • "Helpless"
  • "Helpless"@en

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