The Absence of Nectar
   Kathy Hepinstall
   (Guest Reviewer - Sandi von Pier)
  2001 Penguin/Putnam
    ISBN: 0399148019


Alice & her older brother Boone are growing up in rural East Texas in 1968. One day their father leaves & doesn't come back. The happy family that Alice had once known is gone. Their mother is overcome with grief & stops functioning. She lies around feeling sorry for herself, wishing for a man.

Guest Reviewer Sandi von Pier writes:

The Absence of Nectar is the first book by Kathy Hepinstall I've ever read. In it Alice, a precocious 11 year-old, is narrating, she has only one wish on her mind: Get rid of Simon Jester.

When the kids finally get their mother out for a day of fishing Meg almost drown; while swimming in the lake. That's when Simon Jester comes into their lives rescuing their mother & becoming her hero & savior. Simon says he was married before & that his own family mysteriously drowned.

He's cagey & physically & verbally abusive, but his personality doesn't show up until after the wedding & Meg won't stand up to him. She sees her true worth measured only by having a husband so she doesn't want to upset him & she puts her children second.

I realize that The Absence of Nectar is set in 1968, a decade before laws concerning domestic violence were even put into words, it just touched the mother in me & I was upset by her allowing this to happen. I feel it is our job to protect our children & for Meg to just let Simon get away with the things he does, is unforgivable.

Boone, meanwhile, is in puppy-love with Persley Snow, an infamous teenager. She has killed one person & tried to kill another. Persley was deemed crazy & put in an asylum from which she has continually escaped. Boone is enthralled by her... drawn to her. Although he has never met her, he writes to her all the time telling her that God loves her & forgives her & when she escapes again he wants to meet her. Why does Simon forbid Boone to write to her? Is he just worried about Boone's choice of friends or does Persley have a connection to Simon too?

Alice is the one with gumption & soon discovers that Simon's family did not drown. She & Boone become convinced that Simon intends to kill them to keep them from coming between him & their mom. They appeal to their mother but she says they have wild imaginations. Until one night she comes to kiss them, & instead of her usual endearments, whispers a single word: Run!

The Absence of Nectar has a memorable cast of characters: a gutsy kid, a teenage killer, a boy in love, a deranged step-father, a weak mother, a brain-damaged neighbor, some diabolical twins, a toad, & a dog called “Numbhead.”

The paranoia & obsessive rambling sometimes grows tedious but overall I thought the story was very well told & I enjoyed it. You've got to read it to believe it!

Hats off to Kathy Hepinstall for a sweet read.

More from this author: The House of Gentle Men
(09/23/01)

Sandi von Pier
A RebeccasReads.com Guest Reviewer