A PEBBLE CAST

Disabled child works minor miracles.

Claire blames herself for her son Zeppy’s birth defects: Thanks to the drugs she was using while pregnant, he was born with a fused skull that prevented his brain from developing, and with spinal abnormalities that crippled him. Yet all in his limited world loves Zeppy: his grandmother dotes on him, his young mom has devoted her life to his care. Returning to her parents’ coastal Oregon ranch after her father’s death, Claire decides to help out on her brother Ben’s fishing boat, and nearly dies at sea herself when Ben’s throat is fatally slashed in a freak accident on the boat. But the plucky family soldiers on: the women sell the ranch and move into town to open a gift shop. Claire’s touching drawings of Zeppy and other disabled children are sought-after items and soon a San Francisco gallery owner, Chris Thomas, flies up in his private plane to assess her talent. (Claire and Chris fall in love, of course.) Zeppy is placed in a special school, where he seems to be happy and makes many friends among the visitors to the store, people who attest to the strangely beneficial effect of holding the little boy. Stopping short of claiming that the child can cause the blind to see, the author attributes a mysterious healing empathy to the emotionally challenged Zeppy, who is untouched by human failings such as egotism, cruelty, and the like. But Zeppy will never be healed himself. An operation to implant steel rods in his back results in post-surgical pneumonia and heart failure. The cardiac resuscitation team accidentally severs his fragile spinal column and Zeppy dies, though his wordless lessons of love live on.

Well-meaning but awfully depressing (and amateurish) debut novel.