The Monkey Tree

Anderson, whose debut novel, Going Through the Gate, dealt with coming-of-age rituals, takes on another uncommon theme in this thought-provoking story. Fourteen-year-old Susanna is a talented artist undergoing intense self-doubt that is exacerbated when she meets her uncle, an artist who is incapacitated by fear. In addition, one of her best friends has moved away, another has disowned Susanna and the desire to create art in favor of joining the popular crowd, and Susanna watches her father put aside his music career. Susanna is dislocated still further when her grandmother dies and the family moves into her grandparents' home for the summer. It is then that she meets her mother's reclusive, erratic Uncle Louie, once an artist but now a family burden. Although Susanna is initially afraid of him, she quickly comes to identify with his sensitivity to beauty. Through a harrowing experience involving Uncle Louie and her brother, Susanna discovers her own resiliency. She also acquires an unlikely friend and learns that her accomplished brother has his own insecurities. Anderson's prose, filled with vigorous descriptions and staccato phrases, keeps the action moving, but the novel leaves many unanswered questions concerning the ambivalence of Susanna's father about his music and Uncle Louie's mental state and its probable causes. Readers will have trouble, as well, connecting the themes of friendship and isolation with the image of tailless monkeys that Susanna draws. An interesting but unsettling book. Ages 12-15. (Nov.)