Cage of Stars
by Jacquelyn Mitchard
Published by Time Warner (May release)
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Reviewed by Connie Anderson
Jacquelyn Mitchard was Oprah's Book Club first featured author. I had interviewed her on my Author/Author TV show the day before she was to be on Oprah to launch this program--and her writing career. Oprah's selection of Deep End of the Ocean put Mitchard on the New York Times bestseller list for over seven months. I've been following her career ever since.
Cage of Stars, her newest novel, is as usual, well written. I read very few novels and now I know why. I get too involved with the characters' lives and emotions--but then that is what the author intended.
This story involves a Utah Mormon family with a tragedy--their two little girls were murdered outside their home. The older sister Ronnie was playing hide and seek with them, and in her turn to hide, watched helplessly out a shed's window as a mentally ill man murdered the girls.
If readers get nothing else from this story it is that we should learn what and when to say things in a time of tragedy. We should also keep our mouth shut if we don't know what to say. Wherever Ronnie went, she was the girl who saw her sisters murdered. People would say it even when she could hear it. This added to her fear of leaving her house.
When she is finally old enough, she "runs away" from the people who knew her story--to start a new life--or that is what she implies to her parents as she moves to California.
The novel is about the murder, the survivors and how they deal with family, friends and their new babies who are born after that horrible fall day. It also involves the murderer's family as well.
The family says, "...we will never do ordinary things again without this on our hearts." The world around them would not allow them time away for their sadness as they were always the family that had this happen.
Armchair Interviews says: Older sister Ronnie Swan learns about rage and grief, about revenge and finally, about what she always knew: right from wrong.