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The Map of True Places

Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available

Zee Finch has come a long way from a motherless childhood spent stealing boats—a talent that earned her the nickname, Trouble. She's now a respected psychotherapist working with the world-famous Dr. Liz Mattei. She's also about to marry one of Boston's most eligible bachelors. But the suicide of Zee's patient Lilly Braedon throws Zee into emotional chaos and takes her back to places she thought she'd left behind.

What starts as a brief visit home to Salem after Lilly's funeral becomes the beginning of a larger journey for Zee. Her father, Finch, long ago diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease, has been hiding how sick he really is. His longtime companion, Melville, has moved out, and it now falls to Zee to help her father through this difficult time. Their relationship, marked by half-truths and the untimely death of her mother, is strained and awkward.

Overwhelmed by her new role, and uncertain about her future, Zee destroys the existing map of her life and begins a new journey, one that will take her not only into her future but into her past as well. Like the sailors of Old Salem who navigated by looking at the stars, Zee has to learn to find her way through uncharted waters to the place she will ultimately call home.

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    • Publisher's Weekly

      March 29, 2010
      Barry's considerable if overplotted latest delves into the long-lingering effects of a mother's suicide. Fifteen years ago, Maureen Finch, a discontented wife and bipolar mother to 13-year-old Zee, commits suicide while Zee watches. Flash forward to the present day, and Zee is a therapist with a new patient, Lilly Braedon, who is far too much like Maureen, and after Lilly kills herself, Zee walks away from her practice and travels back to Salem, Mass., to visit her father and his partner, Melville, only to find that her father's Parkinson's disease is advancing rapidly. With Melville missing, Zee becomes a full-time caregiver and must face the half-truths and twisted memories that have compromised her connection to her father, all the while examining how her mother's legacy extends into her life and a fledgling romance. This is a lovingly told story with many well-drawn characters, who sooner or later reconsider the courses charted by personal decisions and circumstance. But there is almost too much story here, and Barry (The Lace Reader
      ) compromises the third act with a weak subplot about Lilly's traumatic last days that reads as an intrusion on an otherwise well-told tale.

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Psychotherapist Zee Finch's life is beset by turmoil. Her father's in the final stages of Parkinson's disease, she's drinking too much, she's stalling her fiancé about marriage plans, and one of her patients has committed suicide. Alyssa Bresnahan's perfect diction and cool, precise pacing could seem at odds with the disastrous state of Zee's mental health. However, as the story unfolds, Bresnahan's performance allows for moments of gripping suspense, pathos, and frustration as Zee tries to map her true place in the world. While Barry's plotting is heavy with Transcendental philosophy, fey legend, celestial reckoning, and human guilt, her poignant descriptions of debilitating illness, lifelong secrets, and romantic stirrings, along with Bresnahan's capable narration, turn THE MAP OF TRUE PLACES into an engrossing listening experience. S.J.H. (c) AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine

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  • English

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