One night in Cleveland, a wrong number connects a middle-aged interpreter for the deaf to a little black girl who has been alone for hours in an apartment. The woman applies for and obtains the position of foster mother for Larissa. An intriguing portait of the process of taking care of a child traumatized by being wrenched from familiar surroundings. More compelling still is the relationship between Alice, the foster mother, and Michelle, the biological mother. This is a clash of women from two different worlds. An excellent read. ( )

Sarah Willis writes beautifully. In this novel, Alice, a 48-year-old spinster, becomes foster mother to 6-year-old Larissa. Larissa's mother Michelle left her alone in the apartment for 19 hours, and the state removed Larissa from her home. Big themes in this novel: loss, growth, love, death. Thoroughly believable, flawed but likeable, characters move through a year in Alice's life. I could not put the book down. ( )

A story about how chance changes the course of our lives, and I like to think, just when we need it to grow in a new direction. Alice, unmarried, 48 and an interpreter for the deaf has recently lost her twin brother in a car accident. She is awakened in the night by a wrong number from a small girl who's mother has left her alone. Instead of calling the police, she goes herself to stay with the child, but when the mother still hasn't returned, she is forced to call the police herself and the child is put in the foster care system. She decides to become a foster parent herself when the child, Larissa, refuses to speak to anyone, and eventually becomes her foster mom. The rest of the book is about how this chance meeting changes Alice, and enlarges her life in so many ways.
This is the first book I have read by this author, and I did not care for her blunt, abrupt writing style. It read more like an offical case history of foster care than a story about three dimensional people. This made is hard to relate to the characters, identify with them, or care too much about them personally. It was not a memorable read. ( )

Alice Marlowe is realizing, at the age of 48, that there's more to life than having a comfortable home, a fulfilling career, and parents and friends that love her. When she's awakened in the middle of the night by a wrong number, Alice 's world is tilted on its axis--and the tilting may very well save her sanity.

A little girl, barely six years old, has called Alice by mistake, missing a phone number by a couple of digits. Larissa, the girl on the other end of the line, is looking for her Auntie Teya--and her mother. As Alice struggles to awake from her deep sleep, she realizes that this child is at home alone, with no one to feed her, bathe her, clothe her, or watch out for her. Doing something she's never before done in all of her life--take the iniative to do something impulsive--Alice ends up leaving the comfort of her home and going to Larissa's apartment, ostensibly to wait for the child's mother to return.

What follows is an emotional rollercoaster so superbly written that I was unable to put the book down once I began reading. Alice is forced to call the police when Larissa's mother doesn't return after several hours. Soon the Department of Children and Family Services is involved, with all the red tape, runarounds, and rigamarole that one would expect from an agency who operates with only so much funding and so many hours in the day.

As Larissa is placed in temporary foster care, Alice realizes that she wants to become a foster parent herself, to take care of Larissa if and until her mother can get her back. The journey that follows is an emotional one--Larissa is resentful, hurt, and angry, as only a child can be; Alice is apalled to realize how hidden she has made herself from the world, and how prejudiced she appears to be; Michelle, Larissa's mother, is alternately sorry for her brief abandonment and intolerable of criticism.

THE SOUND OF US is a rich novel on so many levels. Alice is already dealing with the loss of her twin brother the previous year, and the fact that her parents are getting older. She realizes that although she loves her job, being an interpreter for the deaf, she can't rely on it to be the sole basis for a fulfilling life.

Kudos to Ms. Willis for such an emotionally moving book. This is the first book I've read by her, but I've now added all of her previous releases to my reading list. You won't be disappointed by picking up a copy of this magnificent story. ( )

Women's fiction about a woman in her late-40s who gets a wrong-number phone call late at night from a little girl who's home alone, and she steps in & gets involved. ( )