Make Believe

by Joanna Scott

Book Overview

When four-year-old Bo is orphaned in the car accident that kills his mother, he becomes the focus of a fierce custody struggle and flees into himself -- away from the sea of strangers -- where he inhabits an eerie inner landscape.

The world of "make believe" into which we are drawn in this remarkable novel -- hailed for both its lyrical prose and its profound dramatic and emotional intensity -- is the world of four-year-old Bo, cast...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0316776661
• ISBN13: 9780316776660
• Release Date: February 2001
• Publisher: Back Bay Books
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.5" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Life as it is, not only as it seems

I really liked reading Make Believe by Joanna Scott because it was a book that made you think of what was really going on. Joanna Scott used a lot of sensory and describing words, she didn't just tell you exactly what was happening, she made you figure it out for yourself what was actually happening. Also, I liked this book a lot because it doesn't sugar coat life how most people do. She was able to tell a story while making people aware of the dissfunctional society that we had and still do have. I would reccomend this book to anyone that has patience. This is an excellent book to read to make your own troubles not seem like troubles at all.

One of the better books of this year

Only four years old, Bo knows his African-American father Kamon died before he was born. Now as he dangles upside down in the car wreck, it appears to him that his white mother Jenny left him too. His paternal grandparents have always been there for Bo, cherishing and loving him. On the other hand, his maternal grandparents have not seen him since he was born, shunning him as a pariah. However, when the hospital initially errs by initially missing the fact that the child suffers from a ruptured spleen, suddenly his white grandparents file for guardianship. Jenny's father sees Bo as a means to making millions in a negligence suit against the hospital. He wins guardianship though Bo's Black grandparents have always been there for him and already given him a new loving home. However, Bo quickly learns how much Eddie detests him as the malevolent treatment turns uglier and uglier. MAKE BELIEVE may be the best book of this year. The story line is believable and emotionally taut and complex. The story line grips the reader from the very beginning when an injured frightened little boy wonders what he did to cause his mommy to go away. The characters are well written and their motives slowly surface so that the reader realizes how complex each key player truly is. Anyone who relishes a profound relationship novel will want to read Joanna Scott's latest story and some of her previous works such as THE MANIKIN.Harriet Klausner

Faulkner-esque in its use of point-of-view

Scott was masterful and convincing in shifting points-of-view among characters. The trick was being drawn to the child, but, as alluring as the child's perspective was, showing how each character's "make believe" world was compelling. Each character's self-righteous, mothering, cocky, and indulgently adventuresome world in turn created a reality for the child. And then the child's world continues . . .

A marvelous journey

Normally this kind of non-linear storytelling drives me nuts. But we're in the hands of a master here--Scott's writing is assured and breathtaking. Dazzling imagery, vivid characters--the only complaint I could possibly have about this book is that I wish it were longer.

Brilliant, moving and significant

From the dazzling opening scene, where we plunge into the story by awakening into the nightmarish aftermath of a car accident as seen from the point of view of a child, Joanna Scott, one of - if not THE- most important and significant voices in modern american fiction, takes us into trip through the frail moral fiber our lives are made of. This is an intensely imagined and observed fable, a tale of the strangers among us, and inside us. It is also an adventure of the language, plotted with unique images and a great sense of moral gravity. MAKE BELIEVE is as wonderful, rewarding and relevant a walk into the fictional woods as you'll find this or any year. With this new novel, Ms.Scott takes a departure from her earlier (and by all means must-read literary gothic) novels and explores with that very same keen and bedazzling eye what lies behind everyday lives, everyday characters. It is an amazing meditation on the forgery of realities, a riddle that strikes at the heart and then goes for the brain and the soul. It is also a breeze to read, a pleasure to find such precise, exquisite and well-crafted writing. Joanna Scott is the BMW of contemporary american fiction. If you're still driving that old Subaru, you owe to yourself to discover this national treasure. Pick up ARROGANCE, or Pulitzer finalist THE MANIKIN of MAKE BELIEVE. And don't do it for notions of "literary prestige" or any such nonsense. Just for the pleasure to lose yourself into her magical world, to truly and shamefully inmerse yourself into the sort of novel that makes the world disappear for a while and , then, as we check back in, allows us to understand it, and ourselves, better. Make Believe, indeed. Of the very first order.