THAW, by Monica M. Roe

THAW, by Monica M. Roe (Front Street, April 2008): In this finely-wrought first novel, Monica Roe presents the story of eighteen-year old Dane Rafferty: handsome, brilliant, and a gifted athlete, Dane is intolerant of failure and more than a little arrogant. In the midst of his senior year of high school, he's afflicted with Guillain-Barre Syndrome, a rare and debilitating disease which causes almost complete paralysis. In response, Dane's emotionally distant parents send him away from his home in upstate New York to a rehabilitation clinic in Florida. There, Dane encounters an oddball set of patients and therapists who alternately cajole, irritate, and profoundly affect him. Although seventy-five percent of patients with GBS make a full recovery, there are twenty-five percent who don't and Dane comes to realize he might just be in the latter category...

Told in a compelling first person voice (with flashbacks to his life prior to the illness), THAW artfully traces Dane's progression from self-centered and exquisitely arrogant to being aware of what his aloofness might be costing him (and others around him).

Best of all, throughout the novel -- even when he's at his worst -- Dane is portrayed as three-dimensional and real. In short, Roe engages the reader into Dane's character, situation, and growth in a resonant and affecting manner.