|
 |
|
 |
The Cloud Chamber
was awarded Best Young Adult Novel of the Year by the California Book
Awards of the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco. June
2005 "Delicately wrought, tense, and matter-of-fact, Joyce Maynard's The Cloud Chamber is one of the saddest and most hopeful books you may ever read. Maynard shows why she began her career as a virtuoso at eighteen, and is now a maestra." —
Jacquelyn Mitchard, author of
The novel opens with a chilling moment: Nate comes home on the school bus to see police cars gathered around the farmhouse, and his father -- dripping blood -- being led away in a police cruiser. He has shot himself, but as for where he's going, or when Nate and his sister will see their father again, nobody's saying anything. The novel explores the experience of Nate and Junie, as they struggle to make sense of tragedy, while the adults around them have chosen silence as its only response. Published as a book for young readers (ages 11-14), it's more than a story about suicide, and attempted suicide: The book examines the experience of secrecy and shame in ways that are likely to resonate with many readers of all ages who have experienced their own forms of painful and confusing family silences. It's an ultimately hopeful story about how the brother and sister make their way out of the darkness to locate the truth about their lives in a way that allows them, finally, to survive what might have been an unsurvivable loss.
People ask me if The Cloud Chamber was based on a real story. There are two different answers to that one. I do know someone like the character of Nate, in my story, who grew up on a farm and had the terrible experience, when he was thirteen years old, of having his father shoot himself... Read
Joyce's essay, in its entirety. Click here.
|
 |
|||
 |
|||
|
All material
on these pages - Copyright Joyce Maynard - All rights reserved
Design by foxglovetonic |
|||
