The Love Curse of the Rumbaughs Book

I expect you might think the story I am about to tell you is untrue or perversely gothic in some unhealthy way. You might even think I’ve exaggerated the facts in order to twist this book into a modern-day metaphor on the exploitation of human creation, as did Mary Shelley with Frankenstein. Maybe you’ll think I’m trying to spook you with a psychological tale of a murderous double as Edgar Allan Poe wrote in “William Wilson,” or to stir up family shame as Hawthorne did in The House of the Seven Gables. But my story is entirely different.”So begins Jack Gantos’ unnerving drama about three generations of family and friends in a small western Pennsylvania town, held together by the secrets of obsessional mother love–a love so blood-bound that, once revealed, it has no choice but to turn against its keepers.

Publishers Weekly

With a steady youthful voice, Datz gives an appropriately creepy and compelling edge to Gantos's strange, darkly comic novel of disturbing small-town goings-on. Upon her 16th birthday, narrator Ivy learns from her mother that one of the elderly identical twins either Adolph or Abner Rumbaugh, who run the local pharmacy is her biological father. She also learns that she may have inherited the Rumbaugh family curse: harboring freakishly obsessive love for one's mother. Will Ivy's future be determined by twisted DNA? Mystery, gossip, taxidermy (of the animal and human variety), horror, genetic experimentation and hints of incest are all themes that waft through this tale. Though the subject matter isn't for everyone, teens who take their humor black, and who may be discovering gothic literature or making forays into goth culture, are likely fans for this solidly produced recording. Ages 12-up. (June) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.