It was a good morning surprise on a hard day in the world of fetal alcohol parenting to wake up to a review from award winning novelist Diane Chamberlain author of Before the Storm. I truly appreciate her reading The Whitest Wall and her work in writing Before The Storm to promote public awareness on FASD.
Ms Chamberlain's Review:
With an adopted daughter who suffers from Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, Jodee Kulp knows firsthand the causes and consequences of this devastating and wholly preventable condition. Spurred on by the needs of her daughter and her foster children, she became an expert in the field, a spokesperson determined to educate the public about the dangers of drinking while pregnant, and she has written several nonfiction books on the subject. Often, a writer skilled in nonfiction can become heavy-handed when trying to make her case in fiction. Fortunately, Kulp's transition from nonfiction to fiction is seamless. She understands how to tell a complex story in a way that builds suspense, and her characters are at once sympathetic and so well rounded they feel very much alive. She doesn't club readers over the head with the woes of FASD, but rather draws them into the world of a young man who can barely understand the charges against him as he's accused of murder. Kulp surrounds him with a vibrant community of characters, and she doesn't shy away from addressing the impact of poverty, racism and addiction on these people she lovingly portrays. She writes without judgment about women who drank during their pregnancies and the trials of the children they carried—not an easy task when you're as intimately involved with the problem as Kulp is.
In The Whitest Wall, the first in the Bootleg Brothers trilogy, Kulp manages the impossible: she both entertains and educates. I look forward to the next installment.
Check out her Sympathy for the Devil blog at http://dianechamberlain.com/blog/2008/08/sympathy-for-the-devil.html#comments
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