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- Whispers in the Dark
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1 of 1 copy available
Leaders of a mercurial clique of girls, Celia and Djuna reigned mercilessly over their three followers. One afternoon, they decided to walk home along a forbidden road. Djuna disappeared, and for twenty years Celia blocked out how it happened.
The lie Celia told to conceal her misdeed became the accepted truth: everyone assumed Djuna had been abducted, though neither she nor her abductor was ever found. Celia’s unconscious avoidance of this has meant that while she and her longtime boyfriend, Huck, are professionally successful, they’ve been unable to move forward, their relationship falling into a rut that threatens to bury them both.
Celia returns to her hometown to confess the truth, but her family and childhood friends don’t believe her. Huck wants to be supportive, but his love can’t blind him to all that contradicts Celia’s version of the past.
Celia’s desperate search to understand what happened to Djuna has powerful consequences. A deeply resonant and emotionally charged story, The False Friend explores the adults that children become—leading us to question the truths that we accept or reject, as well as the lies to which we succumb.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
October 5, 2010 -
Formats
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OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9780307751317
- File size: 181876 KB
- Duration: 06:18:54
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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Middle schoolers Celia and Djuna are best friends--until Djuna is abducted in the woods as Celia watches from her hiding place. Twenty years later Celia returns to her upstate New York home on a mission to absolve her guilt and regrets over that tragedy. Goldberg's story also addresses girl bullying and the sometimes-tragic consequences of homecoming. Her youthfully lilting narration recreates events perfectly, as seen through the eyes of 11-year old Celia and her friends. She also delivers the subtly mature tones of family members and Celia's grown-up peers. As Goldberg portrays Celia's desperate quest with a compelling depth of feeling, her nuanced voice reminds listeners that its traumatic origins lie in a horrific tragedy of youth. Goldberg's seasoned writing and delivery often tempt one to "relisten" to moments of her exquisite crafting of thought and experience. A.W. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine -
August 2, 2010
Goldberg's unremarkable latest, a neatly constructed if hollow story of memory and deception, begins in the woods surrounding a small upstate New York town, as 11-year-old Celia watches her best friend, Djuna, get into a stranger's car, never to be seen again. At least that's the story Celia gives to the police. Twenty-one years later, Celia returns to her hometown to tell her family and old friends what really happened that fateful day, but her new version of the disappearance is met with disbelief by family and old friends. Meanwhile, Celia's image of her childhood identity is shattered as she listens to descriptions of herself as a child: she was sweet to some, cruel and bullying to others. Goldberg successfully evokes the shades of gray that constitute truth and memory, but her tendency toward self-conscious writerliness and grand pronouncements ("The unadult mind is immune to logic or foresight, unschooled by consequence, and endowed with a biblical sense of justice") prevents the narrative from breaking through its muted tones. Goldberg misplays the setup, trading psychological suspense for a routine story of self-discovery.
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