Kiss Mommy Goodbye: 1

Kiss Mommy Goodbye is a major new novel from bestselling author Nicholas Walker. Peter Webb is a rock superstar living in California who has everything, but his failing relationships with women leave him hankering back to when he was a simple schoolteacher and on a whim he adopts a fourteen year old girl. Getz, was removed from abusive parents and placed with foster parents and when the story starts it has just been discovered that the foster Father has been sexually assaulting her for the last three years. She has become a highly disturbed young girl who cannot stand any male touching her in any way, she steals cars and attacks people and completely distrusts Peter’s motives in fostering her. Her only passion is the saxophone which has become a surrogate parent and she is mentally unable to be parted from it for even a second. The story goes on to relate how their music brings them closer and Getz becomes his real daughter in the most important sense of the word. Peter is then presented very suddenly with twin girl orphans from Iraq, who everybody resents, including Getz but it’s only with her help that they finally fit into the family. Peter goes on to adopt Butch, a crippled refugee from Bosnia, then the two sons of an Afghan suicide bomber, an American girl who is total drug addict, then finally his own daughter comes to live with them when Peter’s ex-wife dies. The story is one of strong but very different characters who all have severe problems but who all come to support one another through the many family crises. They have to cope with the suicide attempt of Getz, the drug addiction of Ally, the problems with the police and the school, the death of one of the children and the pressures of the press and rock concerts and Oscar ceremonies.The characters are introduced through the medium of a television program which interviews the children of famous parents. Each character is first spoken to by the interviewer before being inserted into the main storyline. It is not a case of telling each individual’s story, more how their acceptance into the family effects everybody’s life.This heart-warming story is full of both humor and sadness with stunning insights into the normalcy of the lives of the super-rich.