- Paperback: 232 pages
- Publisher: Coffee House Press (Sep 1 2005)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1566891752
- ISBN-13: 978-1566891752
- Product Dimensions: 19.7 x 16.1 x 1.7 cm
- Shipping Weight: 204 g
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #2,104,381 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||
Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. With his ears made of envelopes," postman Willard Heald hears the secret intimacies of the residents of Garner, N.H., the setting of this exceptional debut. He composes intricate histories of his small town—time lines, lists, aphorisms, ordinances, predictions and conversations—which form the skeleton of Allio's lyrical evocation of country life as its adherence to the past smothers its present. In a novel full of voices, Heald's rings the loudest: "For some of our native folk, to meet the modern age was a difficult task. It was I who came upon young Frances, face up in Blood Brook and floating." This discovery occurs at the end of summer 1925, during Garner's transition from a prosperous farming town to a decaying vacation destination for a group of wealthy urbanites, and the death of nymphlike Frances only hastens the metamorphosis. Allio's finely wrought writing—Frances has "a laugh of leaves," while Heald's wife muses that "the evening was what one married for"—just barely overshadows a narrative that turns suspenseful in its final third. Four main characters nurse hearts as brittle as autumn's foliage, and their hurts lead them to places as frightening as dark forests and as shocking as the cool water of a stream. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Allio's first novel is a shockingly beautiful work about the clash of age and youth, experience and purity, and urban and rural life in 1920s New Hampshire. With farming less lucrative than in the past, the Giddens family makes the controversial decision to take in summer boarders. The farm draws wealthy, young, and overconfident New Yorkers, and the Puritan town of Garner shakes its collective head. Through Allio's stunning prose, the tension of this situation is tangible and thrilling, even more so due to the knowledge, presented in the opening pages, that young Frances Giddens will turn up dead. As the story focuses alternately on various characters fascinated with the elusive Frances--from a lonely female boarder to the town's curious postman--we learn about the complexity of Garner. And this farming town proves to be the novel's strongest character. Against the haunting backdrop of an ancient forest, Garner is still stinging from the Civil War, a dwindling population, and rapidly changing times, and its conflicts make for an alluring and unforgettable novel. Annie Tully
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items. |
Customer Reviews
|
There are no customer reviews yet on Amazon Canada
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4.8 out of 5 stars (4 customer reviews)
16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Postman as Gatekeeper to a Tragedy, Sep 2 2005
By Debbie Lee Wesselmann - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Garner (Paperback)
In the opening pages of Kirstin Allio's debut novel, young Frances Giddens is found by the town's postman drowned in Blood Brook. It is 1925, and the town of Garner, New Hampshire is struggling financially. The postman, Willard Heald, is obviously troubled by Frances's death even as he labors over his handwritten history of the town. His wife watches him with suspicion, for she suspects him of having harbored a crush on the spirited teenager. The summer boarders staying at the Giddens family's house remain silent, as do those who lift her body out of the stream. No one dares utter the questions lurking in the reader's mind: Did Frances kill herself or was she murdered? And why?
The circumstances surrounding Frances's death constitute the bulk of Allio's subtly moving novel. Told in fragments that often read like prose poems, the narrative is not straightforward and instead skirts the truth like a wary coyote. As Frances writes in her diary, "secrets . . . are the shadows of the plain truth between us." Although Frances's life and death form the center of the novel, it is Heald who is its gatekeeper. All outside communication must pass through Heald, who takes it upon himself to decide whether someone should receive or post a specific letter. He hides truth from the town - and the reader - in a way no one else can. The residents are ignorant of his power, and they treat him almost as an outsider, someone quiet who sits on the edge of their gatherings, a solitary man. Heald's stealth ends up being both his strength and his undoing.
Allio's prose can make for demanding reading since no word or image is wasted, and she leaves the reader to piece together the story from the poetic details she provides. The starkness of 1925 New Hampshire, even during its most bountiful season, preys upon the characters. Some passages are cryptic as Allio splices moments and quotes from different times to punctuate another scene, but whether the author is describing a woodland or a person or even a roundabout truth, she writes with gorgeous precision. Readers will be well rewarded by sticking with her, to see where the meandering journey through the roads and paths of Garner will take them.
Readers of unconventional literary fiction will find much to admire in this unsettling debut novel. Highly recommended for serious readers.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Stark Beauty, Dec 30 2008
By Ted Dintersmith "Ted" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Garner (Paperback)
I've spent time in rural New Hampshire, but know the area in a different way after reading this marvelous work. I found myself re-reading sentences, paragraphs, and entire sections, just to appreciate the beauty of the language. This is a very powerful and moving novel, and I for days I felt the sense of life in this small New England town. The characters, while drawn with a mimimal prose, are unforgettable, and the scenes of stark rural New Hampshire are haunting. I can't wait to re-read the entire book, and eagerly await future novels from this writer.
4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
This book is a gem., Oct 3 2005
By William A. Viall - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Garner (Paperback)
This book is richly detailed and well stuctured. The writer gets you using all your senses. Ms. Allio's first effort brought Nabokov to my mind. Her lean, precise prose are a real treat. It's nice seeing an American writer weaving nature into a story. Garner is a demanding read, but well, well worth the effort.
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
