In her first novel, Bright Angel Time (Harcourt Brace), Martha McPhee captures the era when women's liberation mixed with notions of free love led to sexual license, and Gestalt therapy promised enlightenment. Seen through the eyes of eight-year-old Kate and her two sisters, this is not so much a time of freedom as one of confusion, adult carelessness, and neglect. Kate's steely-eyed view of her parents' world, combined with McPhee's brilliant imagery and deft characterization, makes this '70s-era tale a book for the '90s.
"Ms. McPhee shares her father John McPhee's gift for fine, lapidary prose, and in this novel, her carefully controlled language is the perfect counterpoint to her story of divorce and dissolution. Blessed with a poet's ear for language and a reporter's eye for detail, she proves with this volume that she is also a gifted novelist, a writer with the ability to surprise and move us." -New York Times
Here, McPhee reads the opening to Bright Angel Time. An MP3Lit.com exclusive recording.
Shares