Exploring the life and times of a 13-year-old girl living in Brooklyn near the end of WWII, first-time novelist Lurie offers a story about Judy Strand, daughter of Norwegian immigrants living in the Bay Ridge section. Judy’s ordered world, blessed with a close-knit circle of family and friends is shaken when she discovers that the man she has always regarded as her beloved Pa is, in fact, not her real father. This man, from whom Judy now feels estranged, adopted her upon marrying Judy’s mother. More troubling is the discovery that Judy’s actual father was an alcoholic who abandoned his family in Norway, prompting Judy’s mother to emigrate to America in order to make a new life with her small children. Judy goes to great lengths to conceal what she believes is her shameful secret from everyone. Her relationships with family and close friends become strained. Even a budding romance with close friend Jacob becomes tense because his father is also an alcoholic and this strikes uncomfortably close to home. How all this is resolved, how Judy learns to handle family and friendships under difficult circumstances, and how she develops understanding and self-acceptance in the face of various misfortunes that befall her and her friends makes for interesting if not arresting reading. A competent debut that captures the time and place. (Fiction. 8-12)
