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One Whole and Perfect Day | Judith Clarke

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Lily Samson is sure her family is the craziest. Her brother lolls around, dropping in and out of school, unable to find a path in life. Her Pop, though she loves him, is a bona fide racist (as far as she’s concerned), her Nan has an invisible friend, her mother is fond of bringing home clients from work to stay with them, and Lily, in all her Year Ten glory, is the responsible one in the house. Her friends giggle about boys, she makes shopping lists. Her friends makes up new words, she makes dinner plans. Really, there’s most definitely something wrong here.

Lonnie,  errant brother, has moved out after a blow-out with Pop, involving an axe. Living in a Boarding House for Gentleman, and once again enrolled in school, he’s still trying to find his way. His mother, with no real way to know how he’s doing, worries. Endlessly and pointlessly, if you ask Lily.  Indeed, Lonnie nearly does repeat his cycle yet again, but a little intervention stays his hand. In fact, meeting Clara has changed the world for Lonnie, and all for the better.

Back at home, Lily has concluded she needs to fall in love. It seemed just the answer to her premature aging. And yet, once decided, she quickly changes her mind and finds the whole process of having a crush to be quite horrid. Unfortunately, she can’t go back.

She’s sure as anything that Daniel Steadman doesn’t even know she exists; across town Daniel is plagued with dreams of a mystery girl with a beautiful voice.

Waking in a frenzy one night, unable to recall the color of his mother’s eyes, Pop takes a trip to his old neighborhood at Nan’s urging. Most of it is gone, replaced with stores and shops and food all foreign to him. Worse yet, while sitting on a bench recollecting, he calls aloud a most unfortunate phrase and insults the Chinese woman who just happened to be across the way at the time. He runs for it, but determined not to take abuses anymore, she chases him down. They find in one another an unexpected friend.

Nan, feeling certain that the family needs a celebration, decides to hold a party for Pop’s eightieth birthday. A grand event, it will be! She’s just sure it will help Pop and Lonnie to reconcile. She’s been pestering Lily to try to make it happen, and to make sure Lon comes to the event. Though Lily is certain this can only end badly, what with Clara being Chinese, she does as asked.

In fact, Lily decides this party is important. Maybe the most important thing in their lives. She needs it to be a success. And because he hears this quiet desperation in his sister’s voice, Lonnie agrees. To make up, and to attend. Lily can only hope it will be the one, perfect day she feels she, and they all, deserve.

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The One Whole and Perfect Day | Judith Clarke by Jaemi, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 2nd, 2008 at 11:37 am by Jaemi and is filed under Book Review, Staff Favorites. Find similar posts by selecting and of the following tags: australia, family problems, high school, realistic, ya fiction. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.