Just graduated from high school, he was about to start his freshman year at Purdue that fall. was killed in a fiery car crash while driving to his summer groundskeeping job at a Rochester, New York, country club. Urn:isbn:0743252322 Scandate 20111111213406 Scanner All the Animals by Alison Smith ’92 (Scribner).Īt Six o’clock on the rain-soaked morning of July 27, 1984, eighteen-year-old Roy Smith Jr. OL610614W Page-progression lr Page_number_confidence 89.33 Pages 358 Ppi 514 Related-external-id urn:isbn:1419307126 A fiercely beautiful, redemptive book, it is sure to be a classicĪccess-restricted-item true Addeddate 16:09:23 Boxid IA125201 Boxid_2 CH100101 Camera Canon EOS 5D Mark II City New York Containerid_2 X0001 DonorĪlibris Edition 1st Scribner trade pbk. Heartbreaking but hopeful, this is ultimately a book less about loss than it is about love - about the excitement and anguish of Alison's first love, about her parents' enduring romance, about a community's passion for its faith, and about a well-loved boy who dies too young. Smith tells the story through her own fifteen-year-old eyes, with such expert pacing and narrative suspense that readers will find the book hard to put down.

An intimate book written in clear-eyed prose, Name All the Animals announces a brilliant new writer with a keen insight into the emotional life of the American family, the power of sibling love and loyalty, and the excruciating joy of first, forbidden love. In the end, Alison finds her own way to survive: a startling and taboo first love that helps her discover a world beyond the death of her brother. During the day, she breaks every rule at Our Lady of Mercy School for Girls, where the baffled but loving nuns offer prayer, Shakespeare, and a job running the switchboard. Alison hoards food for her lost brother, hides in the backyard fort they built together, and waits for him to return. At home, Alison and her parents sleepwalk in shifts. This is Smith's extraordinary account of the impact of that loss - on herself, on her parents, and on a deeply religious community. But on a cool summer morning when Alison was fifteen, she woke to learn that Roy, eighteen, was dead. As children, siblings Alison and Roy Smith were so close that their mother called them by one name: Alroy. Includes interview with the author and a Scribner reading group guideĪ luminous, poignant true story, Alison Smith's stunning first book, Name All the Animals, is an unparalleled account of grief and secret love: the tale of a family clinging to the memory of a lost child, and a young woman struggling to define herself in the wake of his loss.

Name All the Animals by Alison Smith