The Place

Wright ( The Playground ; The Island ) offers another hallucinatory, episodic, almost plotless story in this novel about bright, self-possessed eight-year-old Greta King, whose daydreams transport her to an idyllic fantasy world. While out for a drive, Greta's father, mother and younger brother are threatened by a madman with a rifle; Greta, meanwhile, is worried when she arrives at an empty home. While she waits at a neighbor's, Greta's father unwittingly tips off the psychopath to her wherabouts. The demented creature sees in Greta a kindred spirit: he too has a dreamworld, blood-red and foul, and it exists at the edges of Greta's blue and lovely one. The man wishes to take Greta into his world--and somewhere between the two is the mysterious place where Greta's mother and brother have been hidden. This eerie, teasing tale, unfolding in dreamlike fashion, clearly depicts Greta's confusion, vulnerability and easy victimization by thoughtless adults. (July)