Rain

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Overview

Twelve-year-old Janey spends summers at a lake with her family. In the languor of the long, hot days, she and her younger brother are left alone to play together and comfort each other while their parents entertain friends. Balancing on the tenuous thread of their parents' attention, ignored for long stretches and then called upon suddenly to mix drinks or awakened in the middle of the night by drunken kisses, the children huddle together in tender, compulsive closeness. Nourished only by their unspoken devotion ...
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Overview

Twelve-year-old Janey spends summers at a lake with her family. In the languor of the long, hot days, she and her younger brother are left alone to play together and comfort each other while their parents entertain friends. Balancing on the tenuous thread of their parents' attention, ignored for long stretches and then called upon suddenly to mix drinks or awakened in the middle of the night by drunken kisses, the children huddle together in tender, compulsive closeness. Nourished only by their unspoken devotion to one another, the two fill their neglected hours exploring the lush summer landscape and protecting each other from the unpredictable moods of the dark adult world that surrounds them.

The debut of an astonishing new literary talent, Rain is a tale told with painful sensitivity, utterly hypnotic--the story of children struggling to survive in a decaying family.

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Editorial Reviews

Guardian
What impresses most is Gunn's sure evocation of the way children feel and think....Partly because of this finely modulated tone and partly because this book is a bout loss and haunted by waters, Rain is reminiscent of Norman Maclean's classic A River Runs Through It.
Mirabella
It's a beauty....Gunn tells a story that's very sad and simple, though her methods are not unsophisticated. The confidence with which she interweaves the twelve-year-old Janey's perceptions with those of Janey the fully mature narrator; the expert modulation of a lush, lyrical voice; the precise use of physical detail to suggest psychological states -- these are signs of a talent built to last.
Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly
New Zealand-born Gunn's tone is so sure and her storytelling so seductive in this haunting first novel told in the first-person voice of 13-year-old Janey Phelon that we are coerced into being spectators at a sacrifice. Janey and her younger brother, Jim Little, are the children of alcoholic parents in England. Janey serves as a surrogate mother to Jim, since their mother has become too concerned with cocktails to be able to do much nurturing; she tries to protect the frail boy, who seems to suffer more than she from the unparented life they lead amidst the clinking of glasses and the tinkling of late-night drunken laughter. Yearning to escape the hell their parents have created of their summer house, the children wander the lakes and rivers playing at ``Lost Boys.'' ``It will always be only my brother I'll care for,'' Janey promises herself. Only a child herself, however, Janey is unable to protect Jim from the dangers that lurk in the world beyond their fantasies. Nor can she protect herself from her own awakened adolescent sexuality. In lean yet lyrical prose, Gunn captures the voice and experience of childhood, the charismatic alcoholism of the kids' mother and the sad resignation of their father, who carries a bottle and a bowl of lemons wherever he goes. Sensuous water images and descriptions of the lake lend admirable cohesion to a novella that is most harrowing at precisely those moments when its prose is most dispassionate. 20,000 first printing; first serial to Grand Street; author tour. (Apr.)
Library Journal
The Coleridge quote "Water, water everywhere,/Nor any drop to drink" effectively describes the emotional landscape of Gunn's first novel, a fine literary debut. Gunn herself beautifully details the dangerous emotional depths that the novel's young narrator, Janey, must tread. Throughout the slender volume, Janey serves as lifeguard and surrogate mother to her younger brother, Jim. Despite their parents' neglect, the two enjoy their summer residence "where the lake is lapping into endless night, slipping away from us, always further and further, until even the dark sky is filled with stars and water." As in similar novels subtly rendering the horrors of childhood such as Rebecca Stowe's Not the End of the World (LJ 1/92), Janey is sadly not prepared to meet the challenges of deeper and darker adult waters-no matter how well she swims or how tenderly she loves her brother. Readers may not be prepared for this short read to end, but they will enjoy arriving there.-Faye A. Chadwell, Univ. of Oregon Lib., Eugene
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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780802134479
  • Publisher: Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
  • Publication date: 3/28/1996
  • Edition description: Reprint
  • Edition number: 1
  • Pages: 95
  • Product dimensions: 5.05 (w) x 7.26 (h) x 0.47 (d)

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Sort by: Showing all of 2 Customer Reviews

  • Anonymous

    Posted November 13, 2000

    For you I will

    The sister in the book Rain should go by the motto: For you I will. Because that is what she is willing to do for every member of her family. Especially her younger brother. The book has a very dark side to it and readers be weary of it. The author writes phenomenaly and at times you feel you're the character of the young girl. Read and Enjoy.

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

  • Anonymous

    Posted December 10, 2011

    No text was provided for this review.

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