Sunset Terrace

by Rebecca Donner

During the summer of 1983, Elaine and her daughters Hannah and Daisy move into Sunset Terrace, a squalid, low-rent apartment building in Los Angeles that houses single mothers. They have been on the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1931561346
• ISBN13: 9781931561341
• Release Date: April 2003
• Publisher: MacAdam/Cage Publishing
• Length: 311 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 5.3" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

different side of LA

I grew up on Sawtelle in LA and was reminded of things I had forgotten while reading this book. Very evocative.

Touching and insightful

Donner does a remarkable job of putting you inside the heads of her characters, especially the 10 year old Hannah. Her ability to make Hannah's (to an adult's mind) illogical thoughts seem perfectly reasonable rises to the level of Lynda Berry, whose little-girl characters also occupy a bleak and forbidding urban landscape.A touching and wonderful book. Donner is a marvelous storyteller.

Gritty new L.A. writing

Donner has a great sense of character and place, and paints her low-rent, Pico-Boulevard setting in tough unsentimental prose.

Great book

I was absolutely blown away by this book. A goodfriend recommended I read it and I must say, I wasskeptical (I'm so tired of the "women's novels"crowding the bookstores). But Sunset Terrace is sodifferent than those sappy, predictable books. Theprose is both tough and lyrical, and the characters inthe apartment building are so convincingly described Ifelt as if I knew them. I was so moved by the ending-- the author doesn't overwrite, and she doesn'tprovide easy answers. A true work of art.

Gripping

Once I read past page one I couldn't put this book down. Heartbreaking, beautifully crafted and utterly original.