REVIEWS and COMMENTS

 

 Social Activists comment on Baby's Breath:

 

"Baby's Breath provides insight into how this heartbreaking tragedy might occur. Readers will gain a new perspective of the effect newborn abandonment has on the people directly involved, as well as on society as a whole." Lilly Riordan, president, Safe Place for Newborns, Minneapolis, Minnesota

"Baby's Breath is more like a breath of reality. Alyssa's story of denial is all too familiar a scenario for young mothers desperate to hide an unwanted newborn." Jodi Brooks. founder. A Secret Safe Place for Newborns, Mobile, Alabama, and reporter for WPMI-TV

"Who will ever understand why a baby dies, simply for being born? We must open our hearts first and then our minds will follow. This book gives us the key to unlocking the heart of anyone who has been a child or a parent." Gigi Kelly, founder, Baskets for Babies, Inc., Southwestern Pennsylvania.

"I found that once I started reading it was hard to stop. It was as though I was viewing our babies' stories as they unfolded. It is painful but full of truths that need to be shared.11 Debi Faris, founder, Garden of Angels, Southern California

"I believe this book will promote a greater awareness of the increasing problem of newborn abandonment and infanticide as well as increase public support for programs and legislation designed to help prevent it.11 Ohio State Representative Cheryl Winkler, 34th District

"Baby's Breath confirms what I have known, that women who abandon their babies are troubled, scared and confused. That is why I authored legislation allowing them to leave their newborns at hospitals anonymously, without fear of prosecution for child abandonment. This lets their mothers make a responsible choice and gives their innocent newborns a second chance." California Assemblyman Ken Maddox, 68th District

 

Reviewed by PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

August 21, 2000

  
  
A  
  mother-daughter relationship is severely tested in this chilling novel about  
  infanticide by the authors of Swimming Lessons. Single mother Leah  
  Pacey misses her daughter, Alvssa ("Allie"), when Allie goes off to  
  college in Berkeley. But she feels a new lease on life, too, and gives up her  
  real estate job in Philadelphia to paint full-time. Meanwhile, Allie is  
  undergoing a very different transformation. After a brief, fumbling fling, she  
  discovers she is pregnant, but fails to fully acknowledge her condition, even  
  to herself. It is clear from the beginning that there  is something very  
  wrong with this reclusive honors student. She sleeps for 12 to 14 hours at a  
  stretch, is adamant about never returning to Philly (although she does end up  
  going home for a brief Thanksgiving visit) and moves into her own apartment  
  but doesn't leave a forwarding address. Allie carries her secret pregnancy to  
  full term and delivers her baby in a BART subway station; then, in a state of  
  delirium, she checks into a filthy rooming house. When Allie's kindly neighbor  
  notices that Allie is missing, she contacts Leah. Allie is arrested when she  
  returns to the BART station where she left her baby, who has since been found  
  dead, and Allie is charged with murder. Leah's and Allie's stories are told in  
  counterpoint, as the novel builds up to the climactic trial scenes. The  
  novel's two central voices are so seamlessly interwoven, one would never  
  suspect that the authors created this moving and disturbing novel via long  
  distance correspondence. The poignancy they achieve allows the reader to  
  overlook an occasional lapse into clich6 and stereotype. (Sept.)
  
  
(PW August 21, 2000)
  
    
  
 
  
  
Lynne
  reading and signing at The Odyssey

  Bookstore in S. Hadley, MA after the publication

  of Baby's Breath