From: Barbara Tobin <barbara.tobin>
Date: Tue, 30 Jul 2002 01:15:42 -0400

Kim whetted my appetite with her rave about Catherine Bateson?s new YA book, Painted Love Letters. Coincidentally, this month?s issue of Magpies includes an interesting article by Jo Goodman on Bateson, who had published several award-winning poetry collections before she turned her hand to the verse novel genre with A Dangerous Girl and its sequel, The Year it all Happened. What she enjoys about this poetic form is the fact that ?you can play with the voices? you can change the voices very quickly.?

In Painted Letters of Love, ?Chrissie?s voice had to be solid and unwavering, so not poetry.? Through Goodman?s interview you can trace the influence of Bateson?s life experiences on the characters in her book. It is ?not so much a novel as a long poem or a map? a map charting one man?s journey into death, showing the ways his closest companions took to be with him. It isn?t a map for every death. It is a map I wrote while a friend died. It?s a map I made for my mother, a small return for her enormous gift to me, proof that I was listening even when I didn?t want to hear. And, of course, it is a map I painstakingly coloured in thirty years later for the little girl who was woken up one night by her father?s death.?

This May 2002 publication seems to have made it to the US, sort of. Barnes and Noble are ?temporarily out of stock?1-2 weeks order?.


Barbara Tobin (barbarat at gse.upenn.edu)
Received on Tue 30 Jul 2002 12:15:42 AM CDT