Labor Day by Joyce Maynard

I have always liked Joyce Maynard's books. Baby Love and To Die For, both of which I read several years ago, are still pretty fresh in my mind as books I really enjoyed. More recently I read The Usual Rules, a young adult novel dealing with 9/11. Although the subject matter in all of these books is disturbing, they are terrific and interesting reads and approach difficult subjects with frankness, honestly and sensitivity.

Maynard's a good writer - and has an interesting story.  She dropped out of Yale to live with J.D. Salinger (Catcher in the Rye) when he was in his 50's and she just barely 20.  She wrote about that relationship in her memoir, At Home in the World, which I have not read, but plan to at some point.  

Like her other novels I have read, Labor Day deals with disturbing subject matter - a description of "what happens" in the book sounds implausible, but in Maynard's talented hands, the story is  believeable, very touching and poignant. She really develops these characters so skillfully for the reader that you feel you know and understand them and what they do and how they react to the situations described.

This is really a coming of age story - the story of Henry, a 13 year old boy living with his agoraphobic mother in a small town in New Hampshire (where Maynard grew up, by the way). When they venture out into the world right before Labor Day to buy new school clothes for Henry, they meet and are "abducted" by an escpaped convict. He turns out to be very different from what you would expect.

This is a page-turner, for sure, but also a very touching story about love.

Highly recommended!

One more interesting thing- for me anyway - is the fact that Danielle, my son's fiance, went to school with Maynard's children!