Eberstadt (Little Money Street
) creates a powerful modern legend in which a drug dealer can be a fairy godmother and the handsome prince may turn out to be your father. Fifteen-year-old Celia Bonnet, aka Rat, lives with her mother, Vanessa, in the Pyrenees, where they survive on what they can scavenge and sell at local markets. Rat dreams of some day meeting her long-gone biological father, who got Vanessa pregnant during a one-night stand. Rat and Vanessa's tiny family grows first with Morgan, the orphaned son of Vanessa's best friend, and then with Vanessa's boyfriend, Thierry. But after Thierry sexually assaults Morgan, Rat and Morgan run away, dreaming of crossing the Channel to find Rat's biological father, Gillem. Eberstadt invokes the heroines of Charlotte Brontë and Cynthia Voigt to create Rat, who moves forward out of grim determination to protect Morgan, and though Vanessa could be less opaque, Eberstadt creates a sympathetic figure in Gillem, whose artistic crisis takes a backseat to the demands of new fatherhood. Amid the thorns and crumb trails is a portrait of a childhood lived freely, the dangers weighed against its potential for adventure. (Apr.)
