Once Upon a Day
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- £4.99
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- £4.99
Publisher Description
Nineteen years before, a famous man disappeared from L.A., taking his two children to a rocky, desolate corner of New Mexico. Raising them in complete isolation, this utopian "Sanctuary" is one man's stand against the decadence of America.
Dorothea, his daughter, now twenty three, is leaving this place for the first time, in search of her missing brother. A brilliant painter who fled the Sanctuary two years before, he has become lost in the dark underbelly of St. Lois and the even darker memories of a violent incident when he was a young child.
Dorothea's search for her brother turns into an odyssey of discovery, leading to the shocking truth about her family's past and the terrifying events of the day that drove her father to flee California in a desperate attempt to protect his children from a dangerous world. But Dorothea's journey will also introduce her to another man who has suffered his own losses. Together they have a chance to make a discovery of a different kind: that though the heart can be broken by the tragic events of a day, a day can also bring a new chance at love and a deeper understanding of life's infinite possibilities.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Tucker's outstanding novel (after Shout Down the Moon) is as structurally dextrous as it is emotionally satisfying, boasting a chorus of extraordinary voices and assured parallel plot lines separated by four decades. In the present day, 23-year-old Dorothea has left her overprotective father's secluded 35-acre New Mexico estate, called the Sanctuary, where she and her brother, Jimmy, had been sheltered from current news and all modern-day innovations. Searching for her runaway brother in St. Louis, Dorothea meets a recently widowed doctor-turned-cabbie, who introduces her to the vibrant outside world he's been trying to escape. A parallel tale set in the 1970s follows the budding romance between a successful film director and the waif who becomes his muse, his wife and the object of his obsessive control. The tour de force resolution that ties both stories together is a lyrically poignant reminder of the necessity of hope. An exceptionally empathetic storyteller, Tucker has created a haunting, gripping novel that brims with graceful writing and fragile characters. This should be catnip for book clubs, whether they devour it as a page-turner about parenting and family or discuss its subtle meditations on fate and coincidence, wealth and poverty, freedom and safety, fairy tales and American dreams. 10-city author tour.
