Finished Reading: December

December, a novel by Elizabeth Hartley Winthrop, was another title that I noticed on a few Spring Reading Thing lists, and I had it on my library list this week.

This is a gripping, heart-breaking novel about 11-year-old Isabelle, who hasn’t spoken a word in nine months.  There was no pivotal event that sent her into silence, but now that she’s there she often feels helpless to break it.  Her parents are beside themselves trying to find a solution to this situation, taking her to psychiatrists, keeping her home from school, even planning a trip to Africa.  As they grope for some magic that will bring her back fully into their world, they fight and bicker, which drives Isabelle deeper into her silence.

Through the course of the novel – which takes place in, of course, the month of December, the family deals with the illness of their dog, new neighbors in the country, and Isabelle’s unreliable uncle.  The narration is third-person omniscient, so the reader gets to understand what Isabelle and both her parents are thinking and feeling, and the reality of this bewildering situation is deeply sad.

The writing is gripping and stunningly observant.  My teeth are still set on edge from the realism of the passage where Wilson, Isabelle’s father, is at the dentist.  I can just feel that scaler against my gums!

The hygenist holds up the mouth mirror and a hooked scaler to scrape the plaque.  “Open.”

Wilson opens.  This time, his lips don’t hurt him.  He stares at the hygenist’s eyes as she works.  They are an icy blue with a small ring of brown just around the pupil.  A blood vessel has burst in the corner of the left eye, bright red against the white.  This happens to him, too.  He watches the skin between the eyes crease as the eyes narrow and the scaler digs deep, it feels, beneath the gum.  He can taste blood, metallic like the tools, but warm.  The scraping of the scaler against his teeth is loud in his head.  Saliva gathers in a pool beneath his tongue.

“Okay.  Spit.”  Wilson sits forward and spits into the white plastic sink beside him.  He watches blood and chunks of gum swirl with the constant stream of water down the drain.  The hygenist hands him a small cup.  “Rinse.”  He rinses, spits, and sits back down.  “Okay, open.”

I enjoyed December, with its detailed imagery and loving characters caught in an unknowable silence.  I sunk into their crisis as I do when reading, for example, novels by Jodi Picoult.  I’m a little surprised that I was the first to check this book out of my library – it is stamped as received last June!  Have you read it?