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Books

God Bless The Child
by Ellen Feldman

The Free Press, $23

Review by Daryn Leigh

Web posted on: Thursday, June 04, 1998 4:45:05 PM EDT

(CNN) -- You know those novels which, in the midst of reading them, you realize you've successfully chosen a real gem of a book? A real page turner? Hastily recommending it to friends and family, you even begin to find bedtime more appealing since it's only then that you have time to fully be thrown back in its thralls.

Ellen Feldman's "God Bless The Child" is one of those books. Though her writing style is filled with annoying run-on sentences, one whopper of a sentence is 75 words long, (yes, I counted) Feldman does have a knack for drawing the reader into her world.

Is there a downside to this novel? Yes, and it's a biggie. But more on that later.

The main character, Bailey Bender, is an ex-news reporter who leaves the rat-racing, dangerous life of Manhattan for the quiet confines of the Hamptons. She seeks refuge in a relaxing position at the town bookstore and begins to search for the child she gave up for adoption several years before. Unfortunately for Bailey, the big city stories she sought to escape aren't necessarily isolated to the big city. A suspected homicide involving a 19-year-old girl, alcohol, perverted sex and a respected man's young son sends the local townsfolk and media into a speculating frenzy and adds sparks to Bailey's rudimentary, reporter's instinct. (It should be noted that this is a community where the most severe crimes include a man caught in the act of leaving a pizza parlor without paying his $2 bill). A homicide of this nature is destined to become the basis of dinner table conversations for months to come, (this town's too small to have water-cooler gossip) and it does.

While eventually, albeit reluctantly, becoming involved in the town's raciest crime in its history, Bailey is impelled to come to terms with the child she thought she might never find.

"God Bless The Child" is a stimulating read filled with interesting characters who leap from its pages. But there's one problem and it's a big one. Just as the book nears end, the catharsis, the closure, the exciting finish ... Bam! The book ends as if the author was daydreaming about how to spend her upcoming royalties. Anything to expedite publication tout de suite. And why not? The author's getting paid no matter what the last 40 pages embody. Why should she care if at the last moment, the reader is left disappointed and somewhat angered at having wasted emotions each day in a false effort to be fulfilled completing this good read? It's "anticipointment" at it's finest. Feldman leads the reader on an earnest quest to find out what's hidden behind door number one and then left nothing there to discover.

Daryn Leigh is a writer/producer with CNN.

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