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| | The Dartmouth Review: A Poorly Drawn Map (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-03) |
 | | Hamilton is the antithesis of a writer such as Hemingway (or, more recently, Kent Haruf): while Papa left much to the reader’s imagination, Hamilton seems to believe that her audience is not intelligent enough to derive anything meaningful from the novel unless she barrages the reader with endless musings, which are rarely effective. |
 | | Ironically, Hamilton begins the novel with her belief that a fall from grace happens gradually, yet it is the singular event of Lizzy’s near-drowning which casts the family into secular hell. |
 | | Alice has had particular difficulty with the child, who, as Alice tells the police, ‘destroyed my idea that I could help, or make a difference.’ Alice soon realizes that the police are questioning her because she had once slapped the insolent boy in anger. |
| www.dartreview.com /archives/2000/02/07/a_poorly_drawn_map.php (1372 words) |
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