The Big Girls

Knopf. Very Good in Very Good dust jacket. 2007. Hardcover. 1400041902 . 1.1 x 8.3 x 5.6 Inches; 240 pages; <p>At the heart of this electrifying novel is a crime of unfathomable horror and its effect on several profoundly different lives, each altered by a surprising connection to the others.<br><br>We hear four brilliantly realized voices: Helen, an inmate at Sloatsburg women&#8217;s prison serving a life sentence for the murder of her children; trapped within the maze of her own tortured mind, she is the subject of damning national attention. Dr. Louise Forrest, the recently divorced mother of an eight-year-old boy&#8212;the new chief of psychiatry at Sloatsburg. Angie, an ambitious Hollywood starlet, intent on nothing but fame. And Ike Bradshaw, a sardonic corrections officer, formerly a New York City narcotics detective.<br><br>As the alternating narratives unfold, we begin to wonder why Dr. Forrest has chosen Sloatsburg over the Park Avenue practice for which she was trained. And the origin of Helen&#8217;s psychosis is revealed&#8212;both its shocking depths and its disturbingly convincing rationale&#8212;as well as why she is desperate to make herself known to the young actress Angie. <br><br><i>The Big Girls </i>is a powerful and audacious novel about the anarchy of families, the sometimes destructive power of the maternal instinct, the vitality and evil of communities, and the cult of celebrity&#8212;written in spare, evocative prose and with a bold understanding of the darkest, most hidden aspects of human nature.</p> .