What Girls Learn

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY 2. FEB. 1997

"Mama raised us to be just." Tilden, the teenaged narrator of this engaging and moving first novel, tells the story of life with her beautiful mama, Frances, who has always been a romantic spirit. Tilden and her younger sister, Elizabeth, are uprooted from Atlanta to New York when Frances, a divorcee, meets Nick and they move to his home on Long Island. Tilden fears not fitting into her new environment and, indeed, on the first day of school her classmates demand to hear her "talk Southern.'' Soon, however, she has a far more wrenching problem-her mother finds a lump in her breast that proves cancerous. Despite a courageous attempt to fight her disease and Nick's valiant support, Frances slides inexorably toward death. Tilden is a gem of a character, navigating all the complexities of adolescent friendships, sibling rivalry and burgeoning sexuality while dealing with her mother's illness. The details of Frances's decline are an undercurrent to the minutiae of daily life as filtered through a young girl's perceptions. Cook writes clean and direct prose, infused with just the right amount of the aggressive innocence and lyricism with which adolescents often see the world. Only occasionally does Tilden's wisdom seem artificial, the sage intrusion of some older voice. But because Cook has firm and restrained control of her material, the novel succeeds in avoiding the cliches of its potentially melodramatic subject matter. Cook's clear eye is unclouded by false sentimentality, and her ear is keenly pitched to domestic dialogue. An auspicious debut.