Product Description

Clever, precocious Ellen is the only one of the four closely knit Van Bemmel children who dreads the coming of her new baby sister. She is a woman haunted by the memories of her dead family and the horrific tragedy which overtook them 25 years earlier.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #489501 in Books
• Published on: 2001-01-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
A Heart of Stone is the first novel by best-selling Dutch author, Renate Dorrestein, to appear in English (admirably translated by Hester Velmans). It's an extraordinary, and compelling, story of family and violence, childhood and madness--a story whose deft changes of perspective support the suspense that runs right through to the novel's conclusion. From the narrator, Ellen, the third of five children, we know that something has gone terribly wrong for the Van Bemmel family. What, why, and how is only gradually discovered through Dorrestein's powerful exploration of a family apparently doomed to destruction. In her late thirties, Ellen's own pregnancy is the catalyst for her journey of remembrance, her recovery of her parents' wish to give their children "a blessedly happy and carefree childhood" and the perversity that can accompany a mother's faith in the fact that she knows what is best for her children. A story of memory, mourning and rebirth, A Heart of Stone keys in to some of the most painful themes in contemporary fiction. Far from incidental, or gratuitous, that pain is integrated into Dorrestein's exploration of how a fiction might respond to a child's question--"What happens to dead people?"--posed in the most extreme circumstances. "The police discovered Carlos and me huddled in the darkest corner of Billie's old cellar, sobbing with fright"': one of the first indications of what has happened appears early in this novel that, like its narrator, swerves away from finding, and telling, more--at least until the very end of the book when, with tact and care, Dorrestein forces her character (and readers) up against what she has tried so hard not to know. --Vicky Lebeau

Independent on Sunday
'Profoundly original…and heartbreakingly unsentimental'

Kate Atkinson, author of Human Croquet
'A wonderful fresh voice with a startling and ultimately redemptive tale to tell... compulsive'

Customer Reviews

Can a heart of stone heal? Beautifully written & horrifying!
Renate Dorrestein, a Dutch journalist, feminist and writer of fiction has been one of the Netherlands' must successful authors for some years now. "A Heart of Stone" is her debut novel in English. Ms. Dorrestein is an extraordinary storyteller who almost seamlessly weaves together the past and the present in this tale of a horrible family tragedy and the efforts of one of the survivors to come to grips with it.

The author recreates Ellen's childhood world, telling the little girl's story parallel to the adult's. Although one knows, almost from the beginning, what is going to happen, a sense of tremendous tension and suspense is built, precisely because the tragic, senseless events occur in a happy home - a home filled with the love and laughter of caring parents - good, kind people - and their bright, mischievous, sensitive children. No one really sees "it" coming, not really, not even the reader.

I must say that this novel, although beautifully written, disturbed me greatly. It explores the chilling subject of postpartum psychosis and brought back, for me, memories of the Andrea Yates' case. As Ellen leafs through an old family scrapbook and remembers, the pain and loss of the past are juxtaposed with memories of the good times, and make for some extremely powerful reading.

Read Renate Dorrestein's extraordinary novel to discover how Ellen's own heart of stone is able to heal, finally. Highly recommended for both literary merit and subject matter, but be warned - this is no light read!
JANA

The Gothic novel is not only alive, it has been improved.
This terrifying, bone-chilling novel does not depend on mere events, no matter how horrific, for its stunning effects. Dorrestein is much too clever a writer for that. Instead, she recreates with great psychological astuteness the inner workings of main character Ellen Van Bemmel's mind, revealing her memories from the age of twelve to adulthood in a seemingly random sequence, as Ellen allows herself first to remember, and later accept, the unimaginable trauma she has experienced as a child. This trauma is made even more dramatic for the reader because it contrasts so starkly with lovely vignettes of the large, happy family we admire and feel part of in the beginning of the book. Ellen's siblings--sister Billie, brother Kester, and Michael, nicknamed Carlos-- are in every way delightful, normal children, experiencing the same joys and humorous adventures that most readers will have experienced, with parents who are so in love they can hardly keep their hands off each other. It is easy to admire, and even envy, such a family.

And then the idyll abruptly ends, and we don't know exactly how or why. Slowly, inexorably, details are revealed which put Ellen's current life into perspective. A 37-year-old single woman, recently divorced and pregnant, Ellen has purchased the house where disaster long ago struck her family, and there she awaits the birth of her baby and thinks about the past.

Dorrestein is the consummate literary juggler here as she throws Ellen's innumerable memories, partial memories, and suspicions into the air of her story and manages to keep them all suspended until the heart-stopping, breath-taking conclusion. The agony of finding out the details so slowly may keep many people reading well into the night. A most delicious horror story, especially memorable because Ellen seems so like ourselves. Mary Whipple

A family tragedy laid bare
This Dutch author deserves recognition. This is a very skilfully told story of a family's disintegration and the tragedy's effects on the survivors. Much of the novel is told in an arrestingly fresh and candid child's voice, and I found myself laughing out loud in places. Acerbic, witty, and very human.