Looking for Mary Gabriel: A Novel

By Carole Lawrence

In the tradition of Carson McCullers, the author uses her own experience growing up with a mentally ill sister to pen this intensely moving novel. Set in the heart of the deep South, Looking for Mary Gabriel is the story of Bonita, a young girl who desperately wants her family to be normal, despite their strange behavior. Bonita's little sister, Mary, does not act like the other neighborhood kids, and Bonita vacillates between adoring her sister and hating her. Likewise, Bonita's mother is not exactly as warm and loving as one would hope a mother should be. And Bonita's father's motives are suspect to say the least. Almost inevitably, a tragic act of violence shatters the family forever. As this exquisitely written novel opens, Bonita is preparing to bury her father and is looking back on a life that was shaped by secrets, madness, and lies. This is a novel that will be passed along from friend to friend, for Looking for Mary Gabriel captures perfectly the lonely young girl whose ultimate triumph over her unlucky past enriches all read of her.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312285418
• ISBN13: 9780312285418
• Release Date: June 2002
• Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.6" x 1.1" x 5.6"

Customer Reviews

Heartbreaking, Beautiful Story of Sisters and Mental Illness

I can't believe this is the same book that the editorial reviewers so rudely panned! The story was riveting and very well written. I can't remember the last time a book affected me so deeply. I picked it up off the new book shelf at the library on Saturday morning and finished it in tears Saturday night. The characters are still with me as I write this on Monday morning. I highly recommend it.

ENTERTAINING AND EYE-OPENING

After reading some of the critics' comments (as opposed to customer reviews), I have to wonder if the same book was released to the public as was sent to the press. I found Carole Lawrence's novel far from `stilted' and `hackneyed' - I thought it a well-written story, one that is both entertaining on the surface and potentially eye-opening for those who have not had the experience of dealing with people affected by mental illnesses. Reading this book is an experience that could very well lead the reader to a greater understanding and empathy for those of us among us who are touched by mental disease and disability - and allow them to be treated more like human beings and less like freaks.The cruelty perpetrated on Mary Gabriel in this novel - not only by the neighborhood children and her classmates, but by well-meaning but ignorant and prejudiced adults as well - is hard to watch, but it's unfortunately not too far-fetched. `Kids can be cruel' is the excuse too often mouthed by those who would just as soon ignore the problem when it arises - but there is a lot of guilt bubbling under the surface of the Gabriel family, and it causes a lot of harm when it's ignored, or when it's dealt with in an inappropriate manner.Dr. Gabriel is like many physicians of his day - suspicious of psychiatrists, seeing them as out to steal the patients of general practitioners and place the blame for the mental illness of children on the shoulders of the parents. Dr. Landry, the psychiatrist who lives across the street from the Gabriels, is firmly ensconced in the professional beliefs of the day (the 1950s), and holds firm that Mary's mental illness is a direct result of a lack of proper attention by her mother. Medical professionals today believe that schizophrenia and other mental disorders are caused by chemical imbalances in the brain, some of which might be hereditary. Ironically, Dr. Landry's pronouncement that Mary's mother is to blame for her daughter's disease is - somewhat obliquely - pointing in the right direction. However, suggesting that Mrs. Gabriel's mothering skills - or lack thereof - are to blame for her daughter's condition placed an unbearable amount of guilt on the shoulders of the mother.Dr. Gabriel himself is not much more help. Eager to keep Mary's problems `within the family', he lays far too much of the burden of her care on the shoulders of Bonita, her older sister. The effect of this on Bonita is shattering - when something bad happens to Mary, she feels like it's her fault, that she's let both Mary and her family down. This guilt piles higher and higher within her until it wreaks its havoc on her own psyche - it's a sad but inevitable result of placing too much inappropriate responsibility on a child.The author utilizes two time planes in relating the story. One of them is told in the first person by Bonita, and is set in the present day. The other is told in the third person, set in the 1950s, when Bonita and Mary were childr

A true retrospective of LIFE as it REALLY WAS!!!

I LOVED this book!! I thought the author captured life as it really was in Baton Rouge, La. in the mid '50's!! And,yes, as your reveiwer said, it sounds like "Pleasantville", and it was, except for those who were trapped in mental illness!! Her contrasts of those who were allowed to "run free" and those who had "special needs" is really the heart of this compelling and heartwarming story!! She portrayed this loving, once happy family who was torn apart through ignorance and fear, and the GOD-AWFUL SOCIAL OUTCAST horror,in a loving and yet painful way!! And, yeh, folks, that's the WAY IT WAS in So. LA in the 1950's!!! NO ONE was mentally ill!! NO ONE committed suicide!! At least in "nice" families!! Thanks to Ms. Lawrence for helping us remember that maybe some of our "old thoughts" and values aren't quite so CORRECT anymore, and that those of us from this Faulkner-esque mentality from the South should re-think it. I have to give her many thanks for her portrayal of the mental institution and long-time care facility in Livingston Parish that I THINK she is speaking of in this book!! If not, then many thanks to her anyway for bringing a long-time problem to light!! A 60yr old reader from CT who grew up in Hammond, LA.

A writer of great promise

I picked this book up at my local library without much hope of entertainment -- which is why, after all, most of us read in the first place. Sure we hope to be enlightened, but in the end the book has to be in some way enjoyable otherwise any truth becomes insufferable. But this book and these characters held my attention. Lawrence manages to mingle heartbreak and hope in a way that is neither absorbingly heartbreaking nor neatly hopeful. One of the reviewers noted a "stilted" style. I found the style a terrific reflection of the main character's stunted development, and in any case, it isn't an affectation, just a subtle quality that denotes the trauma Bonita faces as she carries on her life in the face of family secrets and family burdens. Overall, a good read from a writer of great promise.