Stephanie Gertler Reviews

Added November 6, 2004

Drifting

Author: Stephanie Gertler
Publisher: Signet Books
Available At: Bookstores Everywhere
Publishing Date: August 2004
Genre: Fiction
Format: Paperback
Price: $6.99
ISBN: 0-451-21263-0
Author Email/Website: www.stephaniegertler.com
Reviewer: Melissa Levine

The bond between a mother and her daughter can be stretched until it is nearly severed, but somehow the delicate threads withstand the trauma and continue to provide an avenue of connection. Author Stephanie Gertler explores this mother-daughter connection in its variant forms in her novel Drifting.

Dr. Claire Cherney finds herself steeped in the discomfort of empty nest syndrome after her youngest child, Natalie, goes off to college. The quiet and emptiness off the small bed and breakfast where she and her husband, Eli raised their daughter and son, Jonah while catering to patrons allows for thoughts of Claire's lost mother to creep into the forefront. Sulie walked out on Claire and her father when her daughter was not quite two years old, leaving a gaping want in Jack and a simmering anger in Claire. Her devotion and fierce love for her own children brings up the issue of how her mother could leave her.

As Claire takes steps to force herself out of her funk, Nicolas Pierce and his daughter, Kayla, check into the inn. It is the off-season, so Claire is taken aback but welcoming. The father-daughter duo reminds her of her beloved father who died eighteen years earlier. After recovering Kayla, who is blind, from an excursion on the beach near the inn, Claire becomes caught up with the pair and even more questions about her own mother surface as she wonders on the whereabouts of Kayla's mother. When Claire shares information Nick confided in her with Eli, who is suspicious of Nick from their first meeting, the father and daughter leave the inn quickly while the owners are out. After a little research, Claire and Eli discover the truth of why Kayla's mother was not traveling with her, sparking Claire to seek out her own mother and finally face the woman for whom she has harbored resentment for over forty years.

Gertler is a writer who is able to communicate emotion that expresses itself as a nearly tangible object to be held and manipulated, allowing the reader something to cling to. Drifting has a heartbeat, each page pulses with anticipation, fear, and hope. The writer has developed real life characters with real life problems that go beyond being believable: they are actual situations that can be read in a newspaper, seen on a television news show, or watched as they unfold in one's own family. The author exhibits impressive control over very difficult but timely subject matter. Drifting is an excellent read penned by a skilled, thoughtful writer.

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