Swimming in the Starry River

A father's love for his dying daughter illuminates this heartrending first novel. Jim Kaldy, who narrates in a careful, steady voice, tells us at the beginning that his family's story is not an easy one. Kim and his wife Marsha's only child, six-year-old Stella, suffers from a lethal, painful, congenital skin disease that has has left her hideously deformed. Jim quits his job as a government financial analyst to care for Stella, allowing Marsha to resume her career. Forced to confront the pain and humiliation his child endures on a daily basis, Jim takes Stella out of school to teach her at home. Yet just as Stella begins to blossom under his care, they are faced with a difficult decision about a skin-graft operation that could alleviate the effects of Stella's disability but would subject her to risky side effects. Without sentimentality or melodrama, Reid creates a harrowing yet immensely moving story. The Kaldys' dilemma is made palpably real, along with their quiet heroism in bearing the terrible burden, and their mutual love. Drawn in by Reid's unflinching, often lyrical prose, the reader gets through it too, and emerges humbled by this story of ordinary people with extraordinary hearts. (May)