Rachel is a nine-year-old girl whose luminous beauty inspires every form of admiration. One summer night, when a summer blackout plunges the city into darkness and confusion, her most fervent admirer--a middle-aged appliance repairman named Ron--abducts her from her home. Set over the next two weeks, "Helpless" moves between the perspectives of Rachel, her mother, Celia, and Ron, whose feelings for Rachel grow less innocent by the day. Tapping into the fear that resides just below the surface of contemporary city life, "Helpless" is a "brilliantly realized thriller about every parent's nightmare" ("Calgary Herald"). Barbara Gowdy is the author of six previous books, including most recently "The White Bone" and "The Romantic." Her fiction has been published in more than twenty countries. She lives in Toronto, Ontario. Nine-year-old Rachel Fox has the face of an angel and a luminous personality that strikes all who meet her. Her single mother, Celia, working at a video store by day and a piano bar by night, is not always around to shield her daughter from the attention--both benign and sinister--that her beauty draws. Attention from model agencies, for example, or from Ron, a small-appliance repairman who, having seen Rachel once, is driven to see her again and again.
When a summer blackout plunges the city into darkness and confusion, Rachel is taken from her home. A full-scale search begins, but days pass with no solid clues, only a phone call Celia receives from a woman whose voice she has heard before but cannot place. And as Celia fights her terror and Rachel starts to trust in her abductor's kindness, the only other person who knows where she is wavers between loyalty to the captor and saving the child. Rachel's abductor has an urge to protect and cherish her, but that urge could develop into something altogether less innocent if she is not rescued in time.
Tapping into the fear that lies just below the surface of contemporary city life, Barbara Gowdy draws on her trademark empathy and precision to create a portrait of love at its most consuming and ambiguous and to uncover the volatile point at which desire gives way to the unthinkable. "Here the imaginative Gowdy reins in her surrealistic side in the service of a more conventional plot, and the result makes for absorbing reading. Single mother Celia Fox works two jobs but is plagued by money problems; however, she never considers her daughter anything less than a blessing. She still feels a sense of amazement that the beautiful nine-year-old Rachel, who has received the attention of a local modeling agency, is really hers. But then Rachel draws the admiration of Ron, a middle-aged appliance repairman who becomes convinced that her mother is neglecting her. During a blackout, he abducts her and locks her in a room he has constructed just for her, complete with a plasma TV and a custom-made dollhouse. As the police hunt for Rachel intensifies, so do the emotions of the involved parties. Even Gowdy's secondary characters are memorable, especially Celia's kindhearted, intellectual landlord and Ron's vulnerable, ex-addict girlfriend. But Gowdy's] true feat is the sympathetic portrayal of Ron himself, a man who seems painfully unaware of his own dark impulses."--Joanne Wilkinson, "Booklist" "Gowdy's tale of the stalking and kidnapping of a beautiful young mixed-race Canadian girl is all the more chilling for its calm, understated reporting. Celia, a single mom holding down two jobs to support her beloved daughter, nine-year-old Rachel of the golden hair, pale blue eyes, and tawny brown skin (father unknown), is rushed into every parent's nightmare when the deeply creepy Ron, a small-appliance repairman, uses the cover of a Toronto summertime blackout to 'rescue' Rachel from what he sees as her unsavory poverty. With the help of his girlfriend, Nancy, an uneasy accomplice whose thwarted maternal instincts impel her to try to protect Rachel, Ron imprisons the girl in his basement apartment. Ron's struggles with his vile urges toward Rachel are in a race with Celia and the police's frantic search for Rachel, helped along by the media circus. At the height of this unbearable crescendo, Gowdy suddenly leads her readers into unexpected territory . . . Highly recommended."--Beth E. Anderson, "Library Journal" "From the accomplished Canadian novelist and short-story writer, an all--consuming tale of child abduction. Gowdy pulls together a group of everyday individuals in Toronto who suddenly find themselves playing extraordinary roles when one of them--insular, delusional appliance-repair man Ron--crosses the line between dreams and active intervention. Glimpsing blonde, mixed race, nine-year-old Rachel Fox one day at her school, Ron immediately falls in love. The child's exceptional beauty has already made her the subject of borderline-suspicious male attention, ranging from an advertising agency to a suitor of her impoverished single mother, Celia. While stalking Rachel, Ron persuades himself that she is the subject of abuse by both Celia and their gay landlord, Mika. Notions of snatching her and transferring her affections to him become increasingly compelling, and he spends time and money transforming his secure basement into a girl's dream bedroom. When a blackout strikes the city, Ron seizes the opportunity to take Rachel. Gowdy's skillful character portraits, enhanced by minutely detailed shifts of attitude and response, include not only the parent and child but also Ron's compromised girlfriend, Nancy. Of the few narrative events, there is a detailed account of the police process and the media's response. Mostly, though, Gowdy focuses on psychological developments: Rachel's gradual involvement with her captors; Celia's manic internal dialogue; Ron's creeping acknowledgement that his protective adoration is in fact something less pure. An assured, perceptive, deftly delivered story."--"Kirkus Reviews" "Love comes up against obse
