Buried (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Buried Loretta Gaffney MacCready, Robin Merrow Buried. Dutton, 2006 [208p] ISBN 0-525-47724-1$16.99 Reviewed from galleys Ad Gr. 7-12 Claudine has spent so many years cleaning up her alcoholic mother's messes that, when her mother suddenly disappears, Claudine's provision of a neat and plausible explanation for her mother's absence—Mom's in rehab—is almost second nature. However, friends of her mother, particularly her boyfriend Linwood, remain skeptical of Claudine's story; meanwhile, Claudine's best friend and fellow support-group member, Liz, grows increasingly concerned by Claudine's obsessive house cleaning and list-making. While Claudine has always buried things, both literally and figuratively, in trying to maintain an orderly façade, her mother's disappearance ultimately leads Claudine to spiral out of control, cleaning house until her hands bleed and posting hundreds of Post-It notes around the house to remind her of household tasks. The book is near-relentless in its purposiveness, and the writing is sometimes unclear in matters small and large (such as whether Claudine has OCD or is neurotically responding to her mother's disorder). Realistic dialogue between Claudine and Liz helps keep the book from becoming pure therapy lit, though, and the symbolic burial of Claudine's mother's alcoholism by Claudine is, if transparent, usually rendered subtly enough to be effective. While the quick recovery of the co-dependent Claudine after the discovery of her mother's death and the speedy wrap-up of all the dangling threads are unrealistic, Claudine's half-imagined, half-hallucinated confrontation of her mother in a climactic hurricane scene is haunting and, after so much secrecy and scrubbing, a welcome if over-the-top relief. Readers who came for the issues may find themselves reaching for the tissues as Claudine finally finds closure with her mother. Copyright © 2006 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois