Book of Phoebe - Hardcover

Mary-Ann Tirone Smith, like her heroine Phoebe, escaped abroad after college, but instead of going to Paris, she joined the Peace Corps and worked in Cameroon for two years. Today she lives with her husband and two children in Ridgefield, Connecticut.

YA Gifted, spirited Phoebe, a Yale senior at 19, takes a semester off to have her baby in Paris and to find someone to adopt it. There she falls in love and has an affair with Ben, a wealthy artist. She explains to him that one of the reasons that she chose not to have an abortion stems from her former acquaintance with Tyrus, a mentally handicapped man to whom she tried to introduce the world after years of isolation. Tyrus' story is told by Phoebe in the journal which she shows to Ben, and it is the core of this book. The journal is part truth, part exaggeration and part outright invention. Comical stereotypes interact with the fully rounded portrayals of Phoebe and Tyrus. Even events in Phoebe's "real" life are sometimes hard to believe. There is a fairy-tale element in that powerful, wealthy people keep helping Phoebe: her famous friend Marlys, independently wealthy Ben, a fictional French politician and his wife. Smith manages to blend the tragic, the hilarious, the sweet and the incongruous into an entertaining story with an upbeat conclusion. YAs will appreciate Phoebe's rebellious, self-reliant character and her lively narrative. Monica Forbes, PGCMLS, Md.
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