littlebabyjesus

The story follows Liv, a slightly reclusive, aspiring artist in her early twenties, who is unexpectedly befriended by a neighbour's child, Alex Lavelle. The novel is told over three years, when Alex is aged between eleven and fourteen. At first troubled by her seemingly maternal instinct towards a child whose family she barely knows, Liv is soon suppressing a more passionate admiration for Alex.

Although the protagonists' actual relationship remains almost entirely platonic, their feelings for one another are not. The novel obviously raises issues of sexual ethics, which are ones that the general public is very conscious of. It differs from the classic Lolita model, in that the narrator of Lolita is habitually drawn to pre-pubescent girls and sees nothing wrong with his involvement with a child, whereas my protagonist, Liv, is disturbed and frightened by her feelings towards Alex.

It's an unconventional love story, in the style of (an old favourite of mine) Truman Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's or Haruki Murakami's Norwegian Wood. It is also an adolescent's coming-of-age story, told through the eyes of the adult who admires him.