A Madonna in the Silky Colored Sky: A Maureen Joyce Connolly Book Review
A mother’s worst nightmare is losing her children, no matter
what the scenario may be. In Maureen Joyce Connolly’s Little Lovely Things, mother of two, Claire Rawlings, watches that
nightmare come to life.
Claire is a medical student at Northwestern University and
suffers from a reaction to the Hepatitis C vaccine given to residents as a new
strand of the virus was going around healthcare facilities. The reaction hits the
worst while driving with her daughters, 4-year-old Andrea and 1-year-old Lily, and
forces her to pull over at a gas station. The next thing she does will haunt
her for the rest of her life: she leaves her daughters sleeping in the car as
she runs to the gas station’s bathroom and almost immediately passes out.
Moira Kelly and Eamon O’Neill belong to – or used to belong
to – an ethnic group called the Irish Travellers. Shunned from their own
community, the two stumble across the Rawlings’ station wagon and Eamon decides
that this was how they would finally have their own family. When Claire finally
wakes, the vehicle is long gone and so are the Travellers and the children.
The story is set in Chicago in 1991; however both the year
and city are barely touched on aside from a mention of pay phones, Lake Shore
Drive and the southwest suburb of Naperville. It changes points of view for
each chapter, from Moira and Claire to Andrea and Jay White, a passerby who
becomes a central part in the Rawlings’ case.
Four long years go by before Claire and her husband Glen
finally receive closure on what has happened to their girls. During that time, the
reader gets to dive into the inner thoughts of each character. Claire’s
relationship with Glen is deteriorating and she constantly reminds herself that
she assumes Glen blames her for everything that happened. Moira must raise
Andrea – now called Colleen – on her own and can’t seem to shake the stories of
Travellers folklore that haunt her dreams. Andrea/Colleen, in the most detailed
descriptions for someone under the age of 10, channels the old life that she
can’t remember into art. Jay can’t escape the tragedy of the Rawlings family and
becomes their unlikely hero in more ways than one.
While this fast-paced drama does end abruptly, Little Lovely Things does a great job of
character development and interweaving story lines. The reader can feel the
grief felt by Claire, the lack of love felt by Moira, the curiosity felt by
Andrea and the spiritual longing felt by Jay. It’s an unexpected plot with
unexpected characters, and entirely up to the reader to decide what constitutes
as a happy ending.
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