In Sight of Stars by Gae Polisner

Abstract

Reviewed by: In Sight of Stars by Gae Polisner Karen Coats Polisner, Gae In Sight of Stars. Wednesday/St. Martin’s, 2018 [288p] Trade ed. ISBN 978-1-250-14383-9 $18.99 E-book ed. ISBN 978-1-250-14385-3 $9.99 Reviewed from galleys R Gr. 9-12 Seventeen-year-old Klee’s world is knocked out of orbit when he finds his father dead from a self-inflicted gunshot. He can’t understand why his father would take his own life, and he blames his mother; after all, wasn’t she the reason his father all but gave up painting and went to law school instead? When she sells their New York apartment and moves them to a house outside the city, he feels even worse until he meets Sarah, who’s attracted to the artsy, melancholy new boy. She’s a bit of a manic pixie except for a melancholy streak of her own, but Klee tries to show her the magical New York his father showed him even though she warns him that he needs more than she can give, emotionally speaking. That proves true when he flips out upon discovering her with another boy; he wounds himself somewhat Van Gogh-style (more a nick near his ear than an amputation) and ends up in a psychiatric hospital. Initially hallucinating the presence of Van Gogh himself, Klee works through the grief that culminated in the crisis with a compassionate doctor and a strange nun who pays him nocturnal visits. Readers will be able to see more dimensions to his parents than Klee himself sees as he recounts his memories; by the end, characters are fully realized in all their damaged complexity. Readers traversing their own real and metaphorical losses, particularly as they learn to see their parents and themselves as full individuals, will find companionship as they share Klee’s journey toward acceptance of who he is. Copyright © 2018 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois