Ms. Hen reviews Angels of Destruction

Angels of Destruction

Keith Donohue

Three Rivers Press

2009

Ms. Hen decided to read this because she considered it a Halloween book, and she has read several by this author, always during the All Hallow's Eve season. She has enjoyed every book that she has read by Keith Donohue, and this novel was no exception.

A little girl named Norah appears on the doorstep of Margaret Quinn, and tells the woman she is lost. Mrs. Quinn lets the girl stay with her, and they decide to inform everyone in the town that she is Margaret’s granddaughter, whose mother is Erica, who ran away ten years before. Margaret has grieved for her daughter the entire time, and Norah helps by pointing Margaret’s attention on her. Margaret starts to believe that Norah is Erica’s daughter, because she wants to cling to the hope Erica is alive and will come back some day.

Norah and Mrs. Quinn try to trick everyone in the town into thinking she's Erica's daughter, including Margaret sister Diane, who comes to visit from Washington. People think Mrs. Quinn is strange because she is still at a loss over her daughter.  Erica ran off with her boyfriend because they wanted to join a revolutionary group, The Angels of Destruction, to help bring about change in the country. They did this shortly after Patty Hearst was arrested. Norah tells the children at school she is an angel, and performs miracles in the school to their amazement. Some of them don’t believe her, and the parents think she is dangerous.

This novel contains two books in one. The first section takes place in 1985, and is about Norah and Mrs. Quinn and what happens in Pennsylvania. The second section talks about 1975, and tells the story of Erica and Wiley when they run away to join the revolutionaries in California, and also Mrs. Quinn worrying about her at home. Ms. Hen admired that there were two books in one, and they were about characters in different times in their lives. The last section goes back to 1985, in Pennsylvania with Norah in school, and Mrs. Quinn.

Another aspect that Ms. Hen liked about this novel was the fact that the characters never knew the truth about Norah, whether or not she was an angel. That adds mystery to the story. It’s similar to the last novel Ms. Hen read, THE GRIP OF IT: in the entire book, the readers do not know if we should believe the events unfolding with the characters.

Ms. Hen thought ANGELS OF DESTRUCTION was spooky, but not too spooky. It’s more of a story of grief and sadness, and trying to recover from the devastation of life. Ms. Hen knows that life is full of sadness, and by reading novels like this, she reaffirms her idea that the sadness in the world belongs to practically everyone, and not just the unlucky few.