Archive for the ‘US Midwest’ Category

THE YEAR WE LEFT HOME by Jean Thompson

Jean Thompson has been aptly labeled “an American Alice Munro,” and as a reader who has been mesmerized time and again by her captivating short-story collections, I wholeheartedly concur.

Now, in THE YEAR WE LEFT HOME, Ms. Thompson leverages all her strengths and skills as a short-story writer and creates a sweeping and emotionally satisfying novel composed of interlocking, decade-spanning stories of a family in flux. As her grand theme, she takes on the universal quest for “home,” exploring all the manifestations of that search.

May 5, 2011 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: , , ,  Â· Posted in: Contemporary, US Midwest

THE COFFINS OF LITTLE HOPE by Timothy Schaffert

THE COFFINS OF LITTLE HOPE by Timothy Schaffert is a small gem. Its multi-plotted story takes place in a small Nebraska town with characters who make this novel special. The town is peopled by a lot of old folks. Essie, the protagonist, is 83 and the novel is told in first person from her point of view. “We were all of us quite old, we death merchants – the town’s undertaker (seventy-eight), his organist (sixty-seven)…the florist (her freezer overgrown with lilies, eighty-one). The cemetery’s caretaker, who procured for the goth high schoolers who partied among the tombstones, was the enfant terrible among us (at an immature fifty-six.”

May 1, 2011 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: , , , , ,  Â· Posted in: Contemporary, Family Matters, Reading Guide, US Midwest

THE BIRD SISTERS by Rebecca Rasmussen

Milly and Twiss are known throughout Spring Green, Wisconsin as “the bird sisters” – two elderly spinsters who minister to broken birds and make them whole again. And, in many ways, the birds are a metaphor for who they are. Early on, Milly reflects, “The smartest birds built their nests high up in the trees. Some birds, namely the wood pigeon, the clumsiest architect of all, began building their nests but never finished them.”

The sisters would fall into that latter grouping. At one point in their lives, they were eager to take wing until the summer of 1947 changed everything. Since the story is told as a flashback, we, the readers, are charged with the task of finding out how – and why.

April 13, 2011 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: ,  Â· Posted in: Coming-of-Age, Contemporary, US Midwest

SING THEM HOME by Stephanie Kallos

This is a saga, a sweeping family story that lodges in your marrow, the kind of story that makes you smile, laugh, weep, snort, chortle, sing, spread your arms wide and lay your heart wide open.

With flavors tender, ribald, ironical, farcical, tragic, magical, and wondrous, Sing Them Home narrates an epic story of a family emotionally disrupted by the disappearance of their mother (and wife), Hope, in a Nebraska tornado of 1978. Hope was swept up, along with her Singer sewing machine and a Steinway piano, but she never came down. Due to the absence of her remains, all that stands in the graveyard is her cenotaph.

March 27, 2011 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: , , , , , ,  Â· Posted in: 2011 Favorites, Contemporary, Family Matters, Literary, Reading Guide, US Midwest

RODIN’S DEBUTANTE by Ward Just

Ward Just is a writer’s writer, as straightforward and gritty and no-nonsense as Chicago—the city from which he hails. His solid 17th novel carries a seemingly enigmatic title – Rodin’s Debutante – a curiosity, considering the book has nothing to do with Rodin or debutantes.

But wait – as in much of Ward Just’s work, there is complexity and hidden meaning behind the seeming simplicity.

March 2, 2011 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: , , ,  Â· Posted in: Contemporary, Literary, US Midwest, y Award Winning Author

THE GIRL WHO FELL FROM THE SKY by Heidi W. Durrow

It amazes me that THE GIRL WHO FELL FROM THE SKY is Heidi W. Durrow’s debut novel. It is poetic, poignant, beautiful and elegiac with the panache of a seasoned writer. Once I started it, I could not stop thinking about it. It haunted my days until I finished it. Durrow has a talent that is rare and brilliant, like the northern lights.

February 11, 2011 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: , , , , ,  Â· Posted in: 2011 Favorites, Bellwether, Class - Race - Gender, Coming-of-Age, Contemporary, Debut Novel, Family Matters, US Midwest, US Northwest, y Award Winning Author