Through it all, Jeff learns to sift through what is shiny but without substance and identify it as fool’s gold. That discovery translates to school, friendships, and his relationships with his mom and his dad. Each day he would go a little further, testing the limits of his courage. One summer at his mom’s in South Carolina, Jeff used the isolation of his mom’s absence to explore a nearby island.

Jeff’s dad, dealing with his own heartache from Melody’s betrayal, didn’t have the same magnetism, but he was always there.

But her unreliability and sheer absence is the source of great pain. Jeff feels loved by his mom, and he’s overwhelmed by her beauty. Voigt pits Jeff’s mom’s charm and beauty and warmth against Jeff’s dad’s quiet stability and faithful presence. In A Solitary Blue Cynthia Voigt uses Jeff’s story growing up to explore love and hurt, home and safety, belonging and fragility, charm and substance. She had parties, or obligations, but she knew Jeff would understand. And they talked, really talked.īut she wasn’t around much that summer. She was hours late to pick Jeff up at the airport, but was exuberant in seeing him again, gushing even. When his mom wrote again, 4 years later, she wanted Jeff to come visit for the summer. Jeff learned those two lines from his father. Jeff’s father was a professor who liked things ordered and predictable. I will hold you in my heart, and you will hold me in your heart, and we can’t ever be very far from each other then, can we? I am going away, but I’m not going away from you. There are some hot dogs in the refrigerator, she wrote. When his mom, Melody, left, she left a note. Although it is hurtful, Jeff's psychological journey is fascinating, and the lessons he learns about the real nature of love and strength are valuable and convincing.These were the two lines that Jeff Green learned to use at age 7 when his mom left. His ability to come to terms with his difficult childhood demonstrates the potential of the individual to learn from and triumph over painful experiences. Along the way, Jeff learns to overcome his insecurity, which results from the abandonment by his mother, the apparent indifference of his father, and the neglect of a series of live-in housekeepers/sitters. The novel begins on the day he comes home from school to find that his mother has left him and his father, and it ends years later when Jeff, who has inherited his wealthy great-grandmother's estate, rejects his dishonest mother's overtures. It tells the story of Jeff Greene from the ages of seven to sixteen. Like most of Voigt's books, A Solitary Blue focuses on the theme of love and trust.

A Solitary Blue by Cynthia Voigt