The Usual Rules by Joyce Maynard
	List Price:   $14.95 Unit Price:   $11.96 You Save:   $2.99 (20%) ISBN-10:   0312283695 ISBN-13:   9780312283698 Publisher:   St. Martin's Press; St. Martin's Griffin Category:   Young Adults Pub. Date:   February 2004 Pages:   400 Format:   Paperback
Subjects
CALIFORNIA_FICTION FATHERS AND DAUGHTERS_FICTION NEW YORK (N.Y.)_FICTION FICTION_PSYCHOLOGICAL SEPTEMBER 11 TERRORIST ATTACKS, 2001_FICTION
Description/Notes
This novel follows the story of Wendy, who lives with her mother, stepfather, and little brother in Brooklyn. Her world is transformed in a single terrible instant, when one day in September 2001, her mother goes to work that morning and doesn't come back. It's a Tuesday morning in Brooklyn—a perfect September day. Wendy is heading to school, eager to make plans with her best friend, worried about how she looks, mad at her mother for not letting her visit her father in California, impatient with her little brother and with the almost too-loving concern of her jazz musician stepfather. She's out the door to catch the bus. An hour later comes the news: A plane has crashed into the World Trade Center—her mother's office building. Through the eyes of thirteen-year-old Wendy, we gain entrance to the world rarely shown by those who documented the events of that one terrible day: a family's slow and terrible realization that Wendy's mother has died, and their struggle to go on with their lives in the face of such a crushing loss. Absent for years, Wendy's real father shows up without warning. He takes her back with him to California, where she re-invents her life: Wendy now lives more or less on her own in a one-room apartment with a TV set and not much else. Wendy's new circle now includes her father's cactus-grower girlfriend, newly reconnected with the son she gave up for adoption twenty years before; a sad and tender bookstore owner who introduces her to the voice of Anne Frank and to his autistic son; and a homeless skateboarder, on a mission to find his long-lost brother. Over the winter and spring that follow, Wendy moves between the alternately painful and reassuring memories of her mother and the revelations that come with growing to know her real father for the first time. Pulled between her old life in Brooklyn and a new one 3,000 miles away, our heroine is faced with a world where the usual rules no longer apply but eventually discovers a strength and capacity for compassion and survival that she never knew she possessed. At the core of the story is Wendy's deep connection with her little brother, back in New York, who is grieving the loss of their mother without her. This is a story about the ties of siblings, about children who lose their parents, parents who lose their children, and the unexpected ways they sometimes find one another again. Set against the backdrop of global and personal tragedy, and written in a style alternately wry and heartbreaking, The Usual Rules is an unexpectedly hopeful story of healing and forgiveness that will offer readers, young and old alike, a picture of how, out of the rubble, a family rebuilds its life. A Novel for All Ages Thirteen-year-old Wendy lives with her mother, stepfather, and younger brother in Brooklyn. Her world is transformed one day in September 2001-her mother goes to work that morning and doesn't come back. Through Wendy's eyes, readers follow her slow and terrible realization that her mother has died, and the family's struggle to move forward with their lives. Wendy's journey takes her to California with her real father where she forges friendships with his cactus-growing girlfriend, a teenage mom, and a sad bookstore owner with an autistic son, and begins to understand the deep love and connection she has with her brother. The Usual Rules is an unexpectedly hopeful story of healing and forgiveness that offers readers a picture of how-out of the rubble-a family rebuilds its life. Joyce Maynard's many books include the novel To Die For and the memoir At Home in the World. She lives in Mill Valley, California. Prologue It was a story Wendy knew well, how she got her name. Your dad wanted to call you Sierra, her mother would begin, because you were conceived in the Sierra Mountains, on a camping trip. Trout fishing, naturally. But ever since I was a little girl, I always said if I had a daughter, I'd call her Wendy. Her mother loved musicals, the big old-fashioned kind. Growing up in Cedar Falls, the only time she ever saw a show was the annual Lions Club production, but one time they had the real Broadway version of Peter Pan on TV, with the actress Mary Martin playing Peter. Having a woman play Peter wasn't as strange as you'd think, because she was skinny and her hair was cut short like a boy. This was way back. Wendy's mother, Janet, was only five years old at the time. She herself had been named after a singer on her parents' favorite show, Lawrence Welk. One of the Lennon Sisters. But even back then, she knew she wasn't a Lawrence Welk type. She was going to be a Broadway dancer. She wanted to play Peter Pan herself. Someday that was going to be her flying over the audience, dancing with the Lost Boys, singing ``I've Gotta Crow.' Her hair was long but she'd cut it. She got to New York on a bus when she was eighteen years old. Back home she'd done some typing for her father's insurance office. With the money she'd saved she rented a room in the Barbizon Hotel, which catered to young women who came to New York City from places like Missouri. She went to auditions, but in the meantime she got a job as a waitress at a Chock Full o'Nuts restaurant and a second job, nights, as something called a Peachy Puff girl, selling cigarettes and candy bars at clubs in a little outfit that was basically a bathing suit, with a few ruffles on the bottom. That was where she met her friend Kate. The two of them saved up their money so they could buy tickets to shows. She went without food sometimes, but never musicals. Janet was a wonderful dancer. They always told her that. But not being able to carry a tune, she was out of the running for featured roles, if any singing was involved. Her big break was getting to be an understudy in A Chorus Line. Not for any of the main parts, but when one of the dancers in the company couldn't go on, Janet did. The problem was, she got this look on her face when she danced. Hard as she tried, she couldn't change. It's fine to be happy, a casting director told her once. But you keep giving me rapture, and that's a little much. The audience is meant to be looking at the featured performers, another director told her once. When you're dancing, we end up watching you. I'll try not to stand out so much, she said. I don't think you can help it, he told her. The closest she ever got to an actual role was final callbacks for Princess Tiger Lily in a road company revival of Peter Pan. Not Mary Martin anymore. I think this time I'm going to get it, she had told her mother when she called with the news. The next day, running across the street on her way to the theater--her last audition, when it was down to just a handful of dancers--a bicycle messenger ran into her. She knew the minute she hit the ground that it was bad. She sat on the curb, on the corner of Forty-fourth Street and Eighth Avenue, crying. A man came out of a stage door, carrying a bunch of tools. A set builder. Hey, he said. You look like you could use a cup of coffee. That was Garrett. He was working as a carpenter, but he was really an artist. He took her out for dim sum that night. He was very handsome in a way that made her think of Billy Bigelow in Carousel. As soon as her ankle was better, they danced together in his loft. East Coast swing. They fell in love. He painted her. A few months later, he took her cross-country in his truck. Camping mostly, and stopping along the way at places wher