"This is one of those rare gems that must be listened to carefully to fully understand what is going on because if you don’t, you will miss a highly entertaining yet thought-provoking, and at times soul-wrenching book. "
"This is one book that will leave the listener pondering long after the end of the program. It explores a range of human emotions, experiences, and choices – the good, bad, and questionable but all magical in a way. "
"This was a really good,weird book!"
One human baby. Several plastic dolls. Three overlapping stories. Many lives changed.
When a young couple, Allison and Nigel, break house arrest to visit a nudist colony, their lives become inescapably intertwined with a visionary lawn ornament artist and a pair of women who steal Baby Jesuses from church nativities.
While on their road trip, Nigel loses their baby daughter in a novelty shop and deserts Allison, who finds herself lost in a strange town and deep in a mushroom trip.
Meanwhile, two women, Annalise and Lakshmi, love nothing more than to steal baby saviors from their nativity scenes. Their fun ends when the law and possibly a copy-cat doll-napper start to catch up with them, and Annalise is sidelined by a serious illness. Annalise’s personal complications and her brother’s incarceration for her own crimes catapult Annalise into a waking dream that connects a lost baby, a nudist colony, a lawn ornament studio, and cancer treatments with a car loaded down with a stack of freshly picked Baby Jesuses.
A Trip Through the Doll Fields offers central characters whose complexities will be both familiar and compelling. Its of-the-moment approach explores notes of feminism, optimism, destiny, survivor guilt, and magical realism, providing readers with a view into a world that is poignant yet whimsical. Readers who enjoy works like The Ocean at the End of the Lane and Like Water for Chocolate will find richness in the themes and fantastical universe of A Trip Through the Doll Fields.