Shadow Baby by Alison McGhee

From the Publisher

Clara first spies him through the crack in the stained-glass window of her church, lighting a string of handmade lanterns in the Adirondack woods. A lone old man, Georg Kominsky moves stealthily among the shadow world of his hanging, glittering creations.

In Alison McGhee's stunning novel Shadow Baby, eleven-year-old Clara is struggling to find the truth about her missing father and grandfather and her twin sister, dead at birth, but her mother steadfastly refuses to talk about these people who are lost to her daughter. When Clara begins interviewing Georg Kominsky for a school biography assignment, she finds that he is equally reticent about his own concealed history. Precocious and imaginative, the girl invents version upon version of Mr. Kominsky's past, just as she invents lives for the people missing from her own shadowy past.

The journey of discovery that these two oddly matched people embark upon is at the heart of this beautiful story about friendship and communion, about discovering what matters most in life, and about the search to find the missing pieces of ourselves. McGhee's prose glistens with shrewd truth and wild imaginings, creating a fine novel that will reverberate in the hearts and minds of readers long after the book is finished.


From the Hardcover edition.

Publishers Weekly

Loss, guilt and regret are conquered and transformed in McGhee's graceful second novel (after Rainlight), a poignant tale of family history regained. Events of her past year are narrated by 12 1/2-year-old Clara winter, who spells her surname with a lowercase "w" as "a rejection of winter, an acknowledgment of what winter really is and how it can kill." Though Clara's mother, Tamar, never speaks about the past, refusing even to name the father and grandfather Clara has never met, Clara knows she was born in a blizzard that probably killed her twin sister. Her grandfather, driving her mother to the hospital from their remote North Sterns home in upstate New York, took the wrong road and ran his truck into a ditch. Stranded, Tamar delivered her own babies, and only Clara survived. Obsessed by her mysterious past, Clara tries to create her own world, reading avidly, writing brilliant school reports on imaginary works, creating story lives for real people. When she meets a solitary old man who hangs his beautiful, hand-crafted lanterns in the dark Adirondack woods, she feels she has found a "compadre." Immigrant metalworker Georg Kominsky also knows the power of winter; as a youth, the lantern he left with his younger brother failed to guide the boy through a deadly snowstorm. Clara becomes Georg's apprentice in "the art of possibility," scavenging with him discarded tin cans he transforms into "objects of light." Gradually, gently, Georg points Clara toward the answers she craves, and teaches her to see beauty in the overlooked and forgotten, even in past tragedy. With a mix of deadpan humor and pathos, McGhee perfectly captures the voice of a sensitive, wise child on the cusp of adulthood, at once knowing and na ve. Agent, Doug Stewart. (Apr.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.|

Library Journal

Clara Winter, the 12-year-old narrator of this tender coming-of-age tale, was born when the car in which her grandfather was driving her pregnant mother to the hospital crashed. Her twin sister did not survive, and Clara grows up feeling the loss of her sister like the phantom sensation of a lost limb. As Clara tries to make sense of what happened, she finds an unlikely soul mate and guide in Georg Kominsky, an elderly man she interviews for an oral history assignment. Clara soon uncovers the important pieces of his life story, including the tragedy that they have in common--losing a sibling during a cold, harsh winter. Georg drives her to meet her grandfather for the first time, and she prods him to heal his relationship with Clara's mother. When a terrible accident separates the two friends, Clara realizes that Georg has taught her a way of seeing objects in the world that she will continue using. Full of unforgettable, rich characters, McGhee's second novel will move many readers by its beauty and simplicity and by its implicit hopefulness. Highly recommended for all libraries.--Lisa S. Nussbaum, Euclid P.L., OH Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.\

School Library Journal

Adult/High School-Clara Winter, 11, narrates this flashback about her friendship with elderly Georg Kominsky, an immigrant living in her upstate New York village. Their relationship begins as a school oral-history project, and the two form a bond over hot chocolate and cookie baking. Georg is a good match for Clara, who is anything but an ordinary child. She creates extravagant book reports for nonexistent books and makes up such vivid family history that she forgets it is fantasy. Mr. Kominsky teaches the girl to scavenge for discarded materials to make into useful and beautiful objects, like the intricately patterned lanterns he designs and hangs, lighted, throughout winter for the local people. Through their friendship, the child learns, "the art of possibility; and the possibility of beauty." They also share secrets. Clara yearns for her twin sister who died at birth, and for her grandfather whose mistake caused the twins to be born in a stranded car in a blizzard. Georg had to leave his injured brother in a blizzard on the trip to America and never saw him again. When Georg dies saving Clara from a fire in his trailer, his guidance enables her to talk to her mother about her twin and to bring her grandfather back into their lives. Clara's insights bring both introspection and humor to this skillfully told story about seeing and finding the possibilities in life.-Becky Ferrall, Stonewall Jackson High School, Manassas, VA Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

What People Are Saying

William Gay
McGhee writes about childhood and old age with equal skill and grace. Poignant and bittersweet, her novel has life on every page.

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Reading Group Guide

2. In many ways the novel is a study in opposites. For example, Clara lives for words, while the old man is illiterate. In what ways do such contrasts serve to illuminate and deepen Clara's understanding of life?

3. In what ways do Clara's fake book reports mirror her world? In what ways do they represent her inner psyche? Why does she burn them all up in the end?

4. Shadow Baby opens with this line, "Now that the old man is gone, I think about him much of the time." Clara is twelve years old as she narrates the book, looking back on the past year of her life. Because she is still very young, she is not capable of having a long perspective of time, yet the book ends with this line, "But I was a child then." Think about other fictional child narrators, e.g., Holden Caulfield in A Catcher in the Rye and Laura Ingalls Wilder in the Little House books, and discuss the events behind their transition into adulthood. Compare and contrast to Clara's.

5. Clara's mother Tamar practices weekly in a church choir. Yet Tamar never attends church, nor do the old man or Clara. Is there nonetheless some religious significance in the book?

6. What is the significance of the title?

7. While it is true that the mother-daughter relationship in the novel is difficult, did youfind it believable and real? Why does Tamar refuse to answer Clara's questions?

8. To Clara, "real life" is often indistinguishable from her fantasy life. What purpose does her wild imagination serve?

9. The story of Clara's relationship with CJ Wilson is intertwined with the story of her chickens. How do the two stories both reflect and enlarge each other?

10. In the book, one person looks at a dented tin can and sees garbage, another looks at the same can and sees the possibility of beauty in the form of a lantern or cookie cutters. How does the book play with ideas of how individual ways of seeing influence one's experience of the world?

11. Clara is obsessed with pioneers, their stories of incredible hardship and triumph over adversity. Can the book in some ways be viewed as a metaphor (or possibly an anti-metaphor) for the traditional American mythology surrounding its immigrant past?

12. Think about the opening scene of the book, in which Clara glimpses the old man hanging lanterns in the woods. Think about the ending scene, in which she is burning her fake book reports in the snow. How do these two scenes, which 'bookend' the novel, mirror each other? What do they tell us about how Clara has changed in the interim?

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