ETHAN BETWEEN US

Myers (The Keeping Room, 1997, etc.) returns to the red-dirt section of Oklahoma, exploring the line between inspiration and madness. Clare, who plans to attend college, and Liz, who is passionate about dance, have never seen a boy like Ethan Bennington in Collins Creek, Oklahoma. Most of the boys in their 1960s oil company camp are interested in hot cars and their future jobs in the oil fields. Newcomer Ethan, handsome and sensitive, plays the piano beautifully and is easy to talk to. While Liz is away for the summer, Clare grows close to Ethan. She can’t understand why Ethan’s parents frown on his music until he tells her that he’s been diagnosed as a schizophrenic and has spent time in a mental hospital for confessing that he hears the voice of and sees a 19th-century composer, Friedrich, who knew Brahms, died young, and wants his own composition, Forest Concerto, written down. When Liz returns and school starts, Clare keeps the details of Ethan’s past from her; Liz discovers Ethan’s secret in Clare’s diary and, feeling shut out by her best friend for the first time since kindergarten, spreads the information around their small school. With strong characterizations, believable dialogue, a fresh setting, and a complex web of relationships, Myers writes provocatively about the intriguing subject of genius and creativity. Readers will only wish the discussion, curtailed abruptly when Ethan heroically attempts to save a retarded girl in a fire, could have been brought to a more prosaic, less explosive, ending. (Fiction. 12-14)