How 'Trainspotting'
H10 www.philly.com THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER Sunday, November 11, 2012 Books Pregnantgirlinstrangeland “Small Damages,” set in avivid Spain, is about love and choices, passions and regrets. CHICK WIT Small Damages tensity that partsofthe book almost rise By Beth Kephart to the level of erotic gastronomy. LISA SCOTTOLINE Philomel. 304 pp.$17.99 Then there is Esteban, ayoung man Kenzie’sage, with ahypnotic way with ReviewedbyElizabeth Eisenstadt Evans birds and horses. Esteban has aspare manner of speech that means that when nour modern world, where so much he speaks, it matters —anongoing con- Of spaghetti experience is diluted and mediated trast with the friendly,popular,and ulti- I through digital technologies, Beth mately unreliable Kephart’snovel, replete with sights and Kevin. As Kenzie’sre- smells and sounds filtered through the lationships with the bands and an eyes of ayoung woman on the cusp of ranch inhabitants adulthood,seems compellingly immedi- deepen, so does her ate —and as far away as acountry once connection to the life visited and now living on the margins of growing within her, excellentfriend memory. whom she imagines, For so much of this young adult novel, and addresses as set in southern Spain in the mid-1990s, is “you.” ’m good in an emergency,but first Ihave to about sensing. “‘What are you go- know it’sanemergency. As Kenzie experiences the sights and ing to do?’ Kevin had I With Hurricane Sandy,Ididn’t. smells and voices of the foreign land asked me, making it The first problem was the name. where her mother has sent the high my choice, and you Beth Kephart sets One of my best friends is named Sandy,and I school student to bear her child after she mine, drawing the the young-adult love that name, so when Iheard that Hurricane gets pregnant, readers are drawn into fine line between us,” novelinthe Sandy was on her way,Iwasn’tworried.
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