THE WHISTLING BOY

by Ruth M. Arthur ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 21, 1969

An attic-dwelling apparition who periodically walks into the sea to a lost village ""where a man could be happy for all eternity""--that's the whistling boy who flits through this overstuffed story, appearing to the lonely. At least that's what Kirsty devises after trying to diagnose friend Jake's sleepwalking experience, after finding an old whistle and a letter detailing Jacques Merineau's unhappy love affair (of 1686), after hearing an old rat-catcher's sick-bed confession. And also after hearing mysterious music in the room-next-door. . . . But all this is seaside summer diversion: she's in Norfolk to reassess stepmother Lois, only nine years older. She also leaves behind a ""tentative friendship"" (do mid-teenagers think such thoughts?) with pot-puffing Dinah, whose shoplifting efforts (to dramatize an alcoholic mother) Kirsty learns about by mail. A gross of neo-gothic trimmings obscure a fairly credible case of adjustment--which will thrill those who like scenes of crashing waves accompanied by crashing organ chords, who also ""sense tragedy"" in new acquaintances and who see in their younger twin brothers the eternal leader/dreamer conflict. For the rest, however, it lacks resonance.

Pub Date: March 21, 1969

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Atheneum

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1969

Categories: FICTION