House Lights

May 21, 2007
In the overly precious third novel from Train Go Sorry
author Hager Cohen, Beatrice “Bebe” Fisher-Hart is the almost 20-year-old only child of two coolly articulate Boston therapists. Bebe's parents duly swallow their mortification and allow her to remain at home, all expenses paid, when she decides to defer college to have a serious go at acting, like her estranged maternal grandmother, Margaret Fourcey. A retired theater actress with a legendary reputation, Margaret lives just across the Charles River, but Bebe hardly sees her and knows little about her life or her estrangement from the family. When Bebe finds out her revered father may have been professionally inappropriate, she lashes out in disillusion and anger, and takes refuge with Margaret. Her paternalistic relationship with theater director Hale Rubin, a 50-ish member of her grandmother's “salon,” deepens. Hale is an idealized character, tailor-made to fill the gap left by Bebe's father's fall from grace, and Bebe, while more-or-less sanguinely tempered, is just this side of annoyingly narcissistic. Bebe's struggles are believable, but the hothouse atmosphere makes the stakes feel small, and Bebe herself something less than likable.

July 1, 2007
Beatrice Fisher-Hart should be in college, but her parents, who are both psychologists, allow her to defer higher education while she takes acting classes. After all, her maternal grandmother is Margaret Fourcey, grande dame of the American theater. Even though they both live in Boston, Beatrice hardly knows her grandmother owing to some lingering family estrangement. When Beatrice's father, whom she has always adored, is accused of sexual misconduct, the family starts to fall apart. Just in time, Beatrice gains entry to her grandmother's salon and is given a part in a summer production. She harbors a fierce crush on the director, and her sense of family contracts and expands as she finds her footing on stage and in matters of love. Almost palpable is Beatrice's distance from her emotions, an inherited trait she must learn to overcome. Part bildungsroman, part family drama, this latest novel from Cohen ("Heart, You Bully, You Punk") is a hit. For most fiction collections.Keddy Ann Outlaw, Harris Cty. P.L., Houston

Copyright 2007 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2007
Finding no allure in the precisely scripted lives her parents have so painstakingly crafted, Beatrice chooses instead to forego college and pursue her dream of becoming an actress. The most expedient route is a letter asking advice of her estranged grandmother, iconic actress Margaret Fourcey, who admits her granddaughter into her weekly salons, where she meetsand falls in love witha famous director who is old enough to be her father. And therein lies the heart of Cohens adroitly subliminal drama, for Beatrices father, a practicing psychologist and university professor, stands accused of sexual harassment by one of his graduate students, an allegation that reveals a disturbing pattern of behavior that sends Beatrice headlong into a relationship that she will question for the rest of her life. Tantalizing in its evocation of emotional fragility and piercing in its interpretation of subconscious desires, Cohens captivating family drama thrums with a sensitive authenticity that is all the more provocative thanks to its poignant lyricism.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)