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Summary
Summary
Set in the 1960s, Barbara Bottner's I Am Here Now is a beautiful novel in verse about one artist's coming of age. It's a heartbreaking, powerful and inspiring depiction of what it's like to shatter your life--and piece it all back together.
You can't trust Life to give you decent parents, or beautiful eyes, a fine French accent or an outstanding flair for fashion. No, Life does what it wants. It's sneaky as a thief.
Maisie's first day of High school should be exciting, but all she wants is to escape.
Her world is lonely and chaotic, with an abusive mother and a father who's rarely there to help.
So when Maisie, who finds refuge in her art, meets the spirited Rachel and her mother, a painter, she catches a glimpse of a very different world--one full of life, creativity, and love--and latches on.
But as she discovers her strengths through Rachel's family, Maisie, increasingly desperate, finds herself risking new friendships, and the very future she's searching for.
An Imprint Book
Author Notes
Barbara Bottner , a New York Times -bestselling author, has written (and sometimes illustrated) over forty-plus titles for children, from wordless picture books to young adult novels. Her work has been translated, animated, and adopted into short musicals. Bootsie Barker Bites , Wallace's Lists (with Gerald Kruglik), Miss Brooks Loves Books , Priscilla Gorilla , and Amy is Famous are some of her favorites. Barbara formerly worked in children's television and CBS prime time comedy, reviewed children's books for publications such as the New York Times , and has published short stories and essays in national newspapers and magazines. Since 1973, she's been teaching writing and illustrating in major institutions: UCLA, Otis Parsons, the University of Miami and privately. She continues to facilitate a Master Class in LA with selected writers. She walks her dog Petey and hangs with her husband, Gerald, in Los Angeles.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
In 1960, budding artist Maisie reflects on her tumultuous freshman year in the Bronx's Parkchester community. Maisie's home is no refuge from her noisy neighborhood--when her Hungarian-American mother isn't battling it out with her father, she is abusive, belittling Maisie and sometimes turning violent. Maisie uses drawing to escape but still feels like "one quarter of a human being,/ three-quarters longing,/ drowning in emptiness" until she meets Rachel, a girl whose home life is everything Maisie wishes hers was. In Rachel's bohemian household, Maisie finds it easy to open up to Rachel's mother, an oil painter, who quickly becomes her mentor. But as Maisie comes into herself, her attraction to Rachel's gorgeous boyfriend could ruin her newfound happiness. Best known for her picture books, Bottner (What a Cold Needs) draws on all five senses to evoke Maisie's chaotic world, using expressive verse to portray "what it's like for me," from the dark atmosphere of her home to the bright environments of Rachel's house and her mother's art studio. Though outside issues make the story line seem scattered at times, the book's subject matter and themes remain timeless. Ages 14--up. Agent: Rick Richter, Aevitas Creative Management (May)■
Horn Book Review
Fourteen-year-old Maisie characterizes her 1960s coming-of-age in the Bronx as one of those fairy tales / where the witch eats the child. And for good reason. Her perfume mogul dad has moved out, leaving Maisie and her little brother to the not-so-tender mercies of their mother Judith, an abusive woman whom Maisie grimly compares to Medea. Maisie copes by immersing herself in art and venting to her neighbor Richie, who is waging his own battle against his father, recently returned from Vietnam. Maisie finds a kindred spirit in Kiki, her best friend Rachels bohemian mother, and blossoms under her kind attention. But when Maisie starts seeing Rachels philandering boyfriend on the sly and Rachel finds out, her thin safety net breaks, and she is forced to turn to the one person she swore she would never ask for help -- her father. Bottners somewhat biographical but mostly fictional first-person novel in verse is rife with wrenching domestic and relationship drama. Maisies big emotions are splashed messily across every page, much like the Pollock paintings she admires. Her stormy relationship with her mother is heartbreakingly rendered, such as when she raids Judiths closet: Im trying to wear my mother. / Its the only way I can get close to her. A detailed authors note describes what aspects of Bottners adolescence inspired the novel. Jennifer Hubert Swan July/August 2020 p.134(c) Copyright 2020. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
A Bronx teen comes of age in a dysfunctional family. Set in 1960, Bottner's verse novel explores the hardships endured by straight 15-year-old Maisie Meyers and her gay 11-year-old brother, Davy, who are repeatedly subjected to their mother's violent physical and emotional outbursts and their father's extended absences. First-person narrator Maisie, from a middle-class Hungarian Jewish American background, takes solace in the friendship of working-class Irish American neighbor Richie O'Neill, the son of a troubled Vietnam veteran prone--like Maisie's mother--to erratic, abusive behavior. Maisie laments that she and Richie "have parents / who could compete to be / the most unhappily married people / in all of Parkchester" and, given the tense congestion of their urban neighborhood, concludes: "Nobody who lives in the Bronx can relax." Bottner's narrative of familial dysfunction probes Maisie's development as she attempts to protect her brother in a house where "it's always war" as she acts out, seeking from a boy the affection denied by a mother who "stands firmly against happiness, / as if it's a bad religion" and who makes no bones about telling her children they were mistakes. Packing numerous themes of evolving teen self-identity amid the cityscape of a broken home, this turbulent, plot-driven tale shows how a miserable home life transcends ethnic, historical, and socio-economic bounds. Timeless lessons in how to find one's self-worth in the face of parental abuse. (Verse fiction. 14-18) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Freshman Maisie Meyers is a budding Bronx artist in the early 1960s whose family includes a globe-trotting father, a physically abusive mother, and a younger brother obsessed with Gershwin. All she wants is a different life and a friend to grow up with. At school, she meets Rachel, and the two become close, especially after Maisie meets Rachel's mother, Kiki, who is an artist. But life goes from bad to worse after Maisie's father walks out and her mother spirals downward, and when Maisie falls for Rachel's boyfriend, Gino. Risking relationships with everyone in her life, Maisie learns from Kiki, stands up to her father, and bonds with her brother for the first time. Bottner's novel in verse is a vivid trip through a girl's early teen years, showing that adolescent needs and wants remain constant through the decades. Maisie is a strong narrator who rings true, especially facing the totality of her challenges. Perfect for readers who are struggling to figure out their place in the world.
