Closed Doors
Lisa O'Donnell, 2014
HarperCollins
256 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062271891
Summary
In this tense and brilliant tale, a young boy on a small Scottish island, where everyone knows everything about everyone else, discovers that a secret can be a dangerous thing.
Eleven-year-old Michael Murray is the best at two things: hacky sack and keeping secrets. His family thinks he's too young to hear grown-up stuff, but he listens at doors—it's the only way to find out anything. And Michael's heard a secret, one that may explain the bruises on his mother's face.
When the whispers at home and on the street become too loud to ignore, Michael begins to wonder if there is an even bigger secret he doesn't know about. Scared of what might happen if anyone finds out, and desperate for life to return to normal, Michael sets out to piece together the truth. But he also has to prepare for the upcoming talent show, keep an eye out for Dirty Alice—his archnemesis from down the street—and avoid eating Granny's watery stew.
Closed Doors is the startling new novel from Lisa O'Donnell, the acclaimed author of The Death of Bees. It is a vivid evocation of the fears and freedoms of childhood and a powerful tale of love, of the loss of innocence, and of the importance of family in difficult times. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1972
• Where—Bute, Island of the Firth of Clyde, Scotland
• Education—B.A.,Glasgow Caledonian University
• Awards—Orange Prize (screenwriting); Commonwealth Book Prize
• Currently—lives Scotland
Lisa O’Donnell winner of The Orange Prize for New Screenwriters with her screenplay The Wedding Gift in 2000. Lisa was also nominated for the Dennis Potter New Writers Award in the same year.
Her first novel, The Death of Bees, published in 2012, won the 2013 Commonwealth Book Prize. Her second novel, Closed Doors, was released in 2014. Lisa had moved to Los Angeles, California, as a screenwriter but has since returned to live in Scotland. (Adapted from the author's website.)
Book Reviews
[D]azzling.... O’Donnell won the prestigious Commonwealth Book Prize last year with The Death of Bees, a first novel that deftly balanced the morbid with the mundane, a talent that remains on full display here.... O’Donnell’s great talent is most apparent in her depiction of the gap between Michael’s thoughts and his actions.... It’s not revealing too much to say that O’Donnell wraps up Closed Doors in a way that feels both unpredictable and inevitable. It’s a fitting end to a moving story that stakes a lasting, and disturbing, emotional claim on her readers.
Andrew Ervin - New York Times Book Review
There’s loss of innocence here, but the overwhelming tone is warm and sparky; O’Donnell shows how a shattered family can remake itself, and Michael’s narrative voice is delightful—observant, thoughtful, comical, and thoroughly believable.
Sunday Times (London)
O'Donnell has created a resourceful, scabby-kneed character who is both believably childish and knowingly perceptive. Yet the novel never feels as blisteringly original as its predecessor.... [Closed Doors] relies on the first-person testimony of Michael—which, while admirably direct, sometimes seems a little bald on the page: "'My da is sad, my granny is sad. We are all afraid and I pray for my ma to get better."
Alfred Hickling - Guardian - (UK)
[O’Donnell] has fashioned yet another humane and compulsive read, grounded in a realism which, depicted through a child’s eyes—with that hint of a child’s surreal perception—gathers together violence, humor, and love in a most believable way.
Scotland on Sunday
Though O’Donnell creates a powerful voice for her young protagonist, she is less than fair to Rosemary, whose fear that telling the truth would open her up to victim blaming is presented as simply a source of pain to others, rather than as a legitimate concern.
Publishers Weekly
As in The Death of Bees, a 2013 Commonwealth Book Prize winner, O'Donnell looks at adult misbehavior through the eyes of a child. Eleven-year-old Michael Murray has peered behind enough doors to know why his mother's face is often bruised, but he suspects that more secrets await him
Library Journal
(Starred review.) The novel asks (and possibly answers) two important questions—to what extent should children be protected from the truth, and does silence do more harm than good? While it deals with disturbing subject matter, this is an engaging page-turner that effectively explores the trials and tribulations of childhood with warmth and humor. —Kerri Price
Booklist
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