The Truth about Delilah Blue (P. S. Series)

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The Truth about Delilah Blue (P. S. Series) Pub. Date: 6/8/2010 Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

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Overview

Delilah Blue Lovett has always been a bit of an outsider, ever since her father moved her from Toronto to L.A. when she was eight, claiming Delilah's mother no longer wanted to be part of their family. Twenty now and broke, but determined to be an artist like her errant mom, Delilah attends art class for free—by modeling nude at the front of the room, a decision that lifts the veil from her once insular world. While she struggles to find her talent, her father, her only real companion, is beginning to exhibit telltale signs of early-onset Alzheimer's. And her mother, who Delilah always assumed had selfishly abandoned them, is about to reappear with a young daughter in tow . . . and a secret that will change everything. Delilah no longer knows which parent to trust—the only one she can really rely on is the most broken person of all: herself.

In a new novel as witty, sparkling, and poignant as her acclaimed Inside Out Girl, author Tish Cohen uncovers the humor and heart within the most dysfunctional of families.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

Motherless would-be art student Lila Mack is the mixed-up heroine of the sluggish and predictable latest from Cohen (Town House). Lila lives with her father in Los Angeles, secretly working as a nude model at the local art school and deeply insecure about the fact that her artist mother abandoned her when she was eight. It’s quite clear there’s more to her mother’s story than what Lila’s dad has told her, so it’s not surprising when Lila’s mother shows up and reveals that Lila—once Delilah Blue Lovett—was actually kidnapped by her father. As it happens, there’s a Web site devoted to her kidnapping that she somehow never stumbled across when Googling her mom’s name. Cohen drops readers into a sticky familial morass—Lila’s father has early onset Alzheimer’s, her mother turns out to be quite flighty, the half-sister she never knew she had is more than a little neurotic—that’s tidily complicated by a burgeoning romance with an art student. Unfortunately, the characters are hollow, the plot has too many unlikely developments, and the happy ending is as forced as it is far-fetched. (June)

Kirkus Reviews

A father abducts his daughter, flees to Los Angeles from their home in Toronto, creates a new identity for the two of them, lives in anonymity for eight years-and then gets diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's just as his wife catches up with him. At the age of 20, Delilah Blue-now Lila Mack-finds herself posing nude for an art class, for she wants to become an artist. She has talent but no money, and she hopes to pick up pointers from crusty art professor Julian Lichtenstein (aka Lichty), far less well known than his famous second cousin, Roy. Until now she's had little confusion about her identity: Her father Victor has persuaded her that her mother, Elisabeth, didn't want her, and Lila readily accepts this explanation. It turns out, however, that flaky mom is now in L.A. (along with Lila's seven-year-old half-sister) because a Canadian psychic had told her she'd find her daughter there. Elisabeth-an artist manque-keeps checking art galleries for evidence of her daughter's existence and eventually finds a nude sketch of her. Mom is rather vindictive because it appears Victor has been feeding Lila a line-although he kidnapped her to get her away from her mom's lax maternal qualities and her spacey artiste, dope-smoking friends, all the time mom had been searching for her daughter. Victor now has problems of his own, however, for even though he's only 53, he's forgetting his appointments-and showing up at odd times-as a salesman for a medical-supplies company. He's also becoming more irrational and impulsive. (A symptom of the problem emerges when he steals a dog left temporarily in his care.) Elisabeth wants to prosecute her husband for kidnapping, but Lila-who ultimately assumes her original and rightful name of Delilah-acts like the only adult in this dysfunctional trio by trying to protect and care for her father and fend off the mother's pent-up aggression. Cohen (Little Black Lies, 2009, etc.) knows how to focus on character in ways that make readers care.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780061875977
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date: 6/8/2010
Pages: 409
Sales rank: 1,164,526
Series: P.S. Series
Product dimensions: 8.06 (w) x 5.40 (h) x 1.12 (d)

Meet the Author

Tish Cohen is the author of the novels Inside Out Girl and Town House and a novel for teens, Little Black Lies. Having grown up in southern California and Montreal, Cohen currently lives in Toronto.

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Slessman

Posted July 5, 2010

more from this reviewer

COHEN WRITES A WINNER

THE TRUTH ABOUT DELILAH BLUE
Tish Cohen
Goldberg McDuffie Communications
ISBN: 978-0-06-187597-7
$13.99 - Paperback
409 pages
Reviewer: Annie Slessman

Having grown up in a dysfunctional family myself, I had no problem getting into Tish Cohen's latest novel, THE TRUTH ABOUT DELILAH BLUE. Delilah Blue Lovett was eight when her father abducted her and relocated to California. Delilah grew up without her mother, but in the care of a doting father. She and her father spend her childhood on the outskirts of Los Angeles in a rural community where seeing coyotes was a daily occurance.

When Delilah's mother finds her, Delilah is now twenty and working as a nude model for art students. However, Delilah yearns to be on the other side of the canvas but her father will not support her idea of art school thinking it will lead her into the kind of life her mother had led.a somewhat open lifestyle based upon freedom of thought and action.
Disapproving of this type of lifestyle, her father wants Delilah to get a business degree that he feels will serve her well throughout her life.

When Delilah's mother finds her Delilah finds out she has a younger step-sister who has an obsession with missing children. While other kids collect stamps and bugs, this child collects pictures of missing children plastered onto milk cartons.

While Delilah gets to know her mother and her newly found sister, her father is falling into the depths of Alzheimer's. While he seems to be losing his memory, he is also setting a plan in place that will care for Delilah when he can no longer remember how to do so.

This is a beautifully written story that takes a reader into the world of art, the terror of Alzheimer's disease, the fears of abandonment, the human ability to forgive and a look into the mind of a young woman whose experiences have taught her more lessons than she could ever realize.

The first paragraph of this book begins with, "The smell of asphalt and dandelions and the last days of school made the air tingle with summer promise: fireflies in applesauce jars, bare toes in the sand at Kew Beach, and leisurely decisions at the ice-cream truck about whether or not to chocolate dip. The afternoon heat had stilled the city." If that doesn't tantalize you to buy this book, nothing will.
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