THE HILL by Harriet Clark

4 stars

This devastatingly sad coming-of-age debut is told by a now young adult Suzanne, a girl whose mother has been sentenced to life in prison for being the get-away driver in a bank robbery gone wrong that killed one of the guards. Her Mom, a dedicated Communist revolutionary at the time according to Suzanne’s grandfather, felt that she was on a misguided mission to steal form the rich and give to the poor. Suzanna, just a baby at the time, ends up being raised by her maternal grandparents who are Jewish World War II survivors, and who are not truly up to task.

Each week in her early childhood, Suzanna went with her grandfather to visit her mother who was serving her time in a women’s prison on a large hill outside New York City. She has cascading memories of these visits, the strange bond of dependency she develops around spending awkward time with her Mom, and a vow she makes to herself to always ascend the hill to visit her. Suzanne’s grandfather dies she she is nine. She’s left with her stern, stubborn, punitive grandmother who refuses to take Suzanne to visit her no-good mother, who she blames for the early death of her husband,. A nun volunteering at the prison resumes the visits, picking Suzanna up each week with other kids visiting their incarcerated Moms.

Suzanna does little introspection about either her grandmother or her Mom, surprisingly has no inward flashes of deep anger or resentment, but instead half-checked out of her life floats along tethered to each deeply flawed women. Her grandmother tries to accelerate Suzanna’s growing up, including by having her skip seventh grade, in pursuit of her own freedom. But Suzanna herself has little interest in growing up, even as her grandmother declines toward death, and instead just focuses on keeping the status quo.

Ultimately, Suzanne finds herself in an internal prison of her own making, as emotionally incarcerated as her Mom is physically. It makes a distressing but deeply memorable coming of age story. Even if Suzanne refuses to, it’s hard as a reader not to hold both her mother and grandmother in deep contempt.

Thanks to Farrar, Straus and Giroux and NetGalley for an advanced reader’s copy.

Stacy DeBroff

Stacy DeBroff, founder and CEO of Mom Central.com and social and digital consultancy, Influence Central, is a social media strategist, attorney, and best-selling parenting author. A sought-after expert for national media, she trend-spots regularly with national brands and speaks frequently to national and international audiences on a wide range of subjects, including influencer marketing, social media, entrepreneurship, and consumer trends. A passionate cook, gardener, reader, and tennis player, she adores this new chapter of post-college-age parenting.