Forms Of Shelter

Forms of Shelter by Angela Davis-Gardner is a fictional story set in the 1950s. The story is told by Beryl Fonteyn the main character. She is an adult reminiscing about what happened to her and her family as she was growing up esp. focusing on her pre-teen and teen years.

Synopsis:

As Beryl Fonteyn recounts her upbringing, the disappearance of her father and the relationships with her mother, brother Stevie, and stepfather Jack, her narrative slowly and surely circles closer and closer to the betrayal at its center.

Perched in her tree house among the leaves of the Osage orange in Jack's back yard. Beryl observes the life around her-Mama's desperate attempts to keep Jack's attention by writing her novel. Stevie's retreat into religion as her acts out events from the Bible, and Jack's obsession with his bees-all the while wishing she could bring Daddy back from Chicago, where he has run off to play in a jazz band. As her father's return looks less and less likely and her mother's alienation and unhappiness grow, Beryl finds herself more and more drawn into the dangerous psychological web that Jack creates

From the inside cover.

I don't know how I feel about this book. I felt I had to keep reading to see what would happen to the family. Even though I saw the betrayal coming, I was still taking by surprise. I felt very sorry for the family. It is a sad book. Beryl finally trumph's after many years of silence by telling the truth about what happened to her and to her family.