From Publishers Weekly
In her previous novels (The White Bone; Mr. Sandman; etc), Gowdy's imagination blazed new trails, melding bizarre characters into memorable situations. This novel is as beautifully written as its predecessors, but more traditional than the Canadian writer's usual fiction. She examines the mysteries of love and its absence in two damaged children whose adult lives remain shadowed by their early experiences. In the early 1960s in Toronto, when she is 10, narrator Louise Kirk falls in love with a new neighbor boy named Abelard, the adopted son of the Richter family. Louise's mother, a former beauty queen who said things like, "Nobody would believe you're my daughter," abandoned Louise and her passive father a year ago, and Louise prays that the Richters will adopt her, too. Louise has oceans of love to lavish and focuses all her psychic and emotional energy on Abel, who can't bear the weight of it because he is more fragile than she is. She remains obsessed with Abel even after his family moves away, and on the night he briefly reappears, when she is in high school, she conceives his child. But the curious, tender boy she knew has become an alcoholic, taking refuge in Rimbaud and determined to end his life. The narrative moves back and forth in time, spinning out the story of the doomed relationship. Each of the characters, even minor ones, has a unique voice and a vivid, quirky personality. Louise's need to have Abel create the world for her resonates with unfulfilled passion. In reining in her imagination to the limits of a conventional love story, Gowdy has produced her most haunting and sensitive novel to date.Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
Louise Kirk has loved Abel Richter since they were children, but it was his mother who drew her affection first. At 10, a year after Louise's own mother left her and her father, the Richters, an older couple with an adopted son, move in next door. Louise watches Mrs. Richter longingly from a distance, wishing she would adopt her as well. Louise befriends Abel in order to get to Mrs. Richter, but her love soon transfers to the solitary, sensitive boy. The connection between the two flourishes, and Louise never stops thinking about Abel, even when he moves away. It is his return, when they meet at a high-school party, that marks the beginning of their adult relationship--an attachment Louise thinks will be permanent, especially when she discovers she is pregnant. But her love for Abel blinds her to his failings. Moving seamlessly between Louise's childhood, her teen years, and her present, this novel is a sad, beautiful examination of a lonely woman and her attempts to find unconditional, unwavering love. Kristine Huntley
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Review
"[A] heartbreaking and compassionate novel...Gowdy is a miraculous writer. The pages of The Romantic brim over with so much real life they practically breathe."--Chicago Tribune

"Few writers are able to meld the serious and the comic to such poignant effect...a brilliant evocation."--The Boston Globe

"[A] masterful narration that moves seamlessly back and forth in time...clear-eyed."--Los Angeles Times

"I had to admire Gowdy's elegant structure.... Louise’s descriptions of her feelings for Abel are carefully constructed and, at times, flat-out beautiful.... [Gowdy] has found a perfect vehicle for her peculiar talents."--The New York Times Book Review



Book Description
When she is nine-years-old, Louise Kirk’s mother disappears, leaving a note that reads only--and incorrectly--"Louise knows how to work the washing machine." It is not long before a strange couple and their adopted son, Abel, move in across the street. Louise quickly grows close with the exotic Mrs. Richter, but saves her stronger, more lasting affections for Mrs. Richter’s intelligent son. From this childhood friendship evolves a love that will bind Louise and Abel forever, and though Abel moves away and Louise matures into adulthood, her attachment grows dangerously, fiercely fixed.



About the Author
Barbara Gowdy is the author of five previous books, including The White Bone. Her fiction has been published in more than twenty countries. She lives in Toronto, Ontario.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"Louise Kirk learns about love and loss at an early age. When she is nine years old, her former beauty queen mother disappears, leaving a note that reads only - and incorrectly - "Louise knows how to work the washing machine." Soon after, the Richters and their adopted son, Abel, move in across the street. Louise's immediate devotion to the exotic, motherly Mrs. Richter is quickly transferred to her nature-loving, precociously intelligent son." From this childhood friendship evolves a love that will bind Louise and Abel for the rest of their lives. Though Abel moves away, Louise's attachment becomes ever more fixed as she grows up. Separations are followed by reunions, but with every turn of their fractured relationship, Louise discovers that she cannot get Abel to love her as fiercely and exclusively as she loves him. Only when Louise comes face to face with another great loss is she finally forced to confront the costs of abandoning herself to another.

FROM THE CRITICS

The New York Times

By resisting the bossy tug of plot, Gowdy finds plenty of time to notice those unimportant-to-the-world details that make her writing so lovely. Louise's descriptions of her feelings for Abel are carefully constructed and, at times, flat-out beautiful: ''I imagine holding my hand a few inches above a boulder. It's twilight, summer, growing cool. The boulder gives off the heat of the day. My love for Abel is like the heat between the boulder and the falling night.'' Gowdy has found a perfect vehicle for her peculiar talents. Louise remains faithful to her totally doomed childhood love. She might be crazy, she might be exceptionally sane. Gowdy is too fine a writer to tell us. — Claire Dederer

The Los Angeles Times

Gowdy's clear-eyed narration gives readers insight into the difficult and extraordinary challenge of surviving maternal abandonment. She presents Louise's needs as bald and raw, and in so doing, the unbearable pain of Louise's dilemma resonates deeply in readers.

Though obsessive love and romantic desire serve as the story's framework, the tale's foundation is built solidly on the rupture suffered by this child and the way her intense yearning shapes her world. At the heart of The Romantic are questions about loss and love that are, in many ways, unanswerable and anything but romantic. — Bernadette Murphy

The Washington Post

Gowdy's writing, at its best, reminds those lucky enough to have fallen ecstatically in love how it can feel like religious conversion. — Jane Vandenburgh

Publishers Weekly

In her previous novels (The White Bone; Mr. Sandman; etc), Gowdy's imagination blazed new trails, melding bizarre characters into memorable situations. This novel is as beautifully written as its predecessors, but more traditional than the Canadian writer's usual fiction. She examines the mysteries of love and its absence in two damaged children whose adult lives remain shadowed by their early experiences. In the early 1960s in Toronto, when she is 10, narrator Louise Kirk falls in love with a new neighbor boy named Abelard, the adopted son of the Richter family. Louise's mother, a former beauty queen who said things like, "Nobody would believe you're my daughter," abandoned Louise and her passive father a year ago, and Louise prays that the Richters will adopt her, too. Louise has oceans of love to lavish and focuses all her psychic and emotional energy on Abel, who can't bear the weight of it because he is more fragile than she is. She remains obsessed with Abel even after his family moves away, and on the night he briefly reappears, when she is in high school, she conceives his child. But the curious, tender boy she knew has become an alcoholic, taking refuge in Rimbaud and determined to end his life. The narrative moves back and forth in time, spinning out the story of the doomed relationship. Each of the characters, even minor ones, has a unique voice and a vivid, quirky personality. Louise's need to have Abel create the world for her resonates with unfulfilled passion. In reining in her imagination to the limits of a conventional love story, Gowdy has produced her most haunting and sensitive novel to date. Author tour. (May) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

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