Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 14, 1993 TAG: 9303140203
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: D-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Reviewed by HARRIET LITTLE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
MARINA RUST IMPRESSIVE IN DEBUT
GATHERINGS. By Marina Rust. Simon and Schuster. $19.Marina Rust has written a first novel remarkable in its characterization and control.
The first person narrator, Meredith Fraser Bennett, begins in 1990 and then goes back in time to 1974 when her mother first takes her to a family home, a South Carolina plantation named Heyton Hall, for the occasion of her Aunt Helen's third wedding. Meredith's young cousins, Felicity and Henry Pearce, respectively two and four years older, also attend their mother's wedding. This family "gathering" begins a plot that includes many other relatives in Meredith's journal-like entries relating the family's activities over the intervening years.
The other settings include family homes and apartments in Maine, Florida and New York. The family's wealth clearly sets it apart, but it is further set apart by its own mysteries. Meredith's relationship with Felicity and Pearce weaves in and out of the narrative and evolves into a closeness which, in Pearce's case, becomes increasingly dangerous.
Then, too, Meredith becomes ever more aware of questions involving both her mother's and her Uncle "Harry's" early deaths, and the troubling matter of family insanity.
Through Meredith's often detached account, the other family members come vividly to life and, as they tease and mystify Meredith, they tantalize the reader. Rust's prose often becomes lyrical. Near the novel's end, from the island home in Maine, Merdith listens to the ocean and hears "a high, gentle pitch like chimes wrapped in gauze."
The all-enveloping wealth of Meredith's family ultimately cannot protect the three cousins from themselves and the reality of its vanishing. Cheers to Marina Rust for a graceful and adept debut.
Harriet Little teaches at James River high school.