Like her 2006 debut, Fireworks
, Winthrop's second novel focuses on the turmoil wrought by the loss of a child. Although Wilson and Ruth Carter's 11-year-old daughter, Isabelle, is very much alive, she hasn't spoken in nine months, an elective muteness brought on by no known trauma. Her silence confounds her parents, a series of psychiatrists and her Manhattan private school, which, by December, is losing patience with her. Ruth, a successful lawyer, pores over Isabelle's past actions and sketchbooks for hidden meanings; Wilson, a well-meaning but often bumbling father who still views his preteen daughter as a little girl, is convinced that action, not analysis, will cure Isabelle. Isabelle herself, whom Winthrop introduces skillfully through a shifting third-person omniscient narrative, is most intriguing: keenly self-aware but unable to help herself, alternating between resentment and adoration for her parents, Isabelle is in many ways simply a preadolescent to the nth degree. Like budding artist Isabelle, Winthrop is a master of observation, and her ability to crystallize themes in particular vignettes (fixing a broken phonograph, buying Christmas presents) brings this affecting family drama vividly to life. (June)
