This seems to be one of those books to which most readers either connect deeply or don't connect at all. I didn't really connect with this book, although I can appreciate why other readers loved it.
This book takes a little work to get into: it starts with the story of Robert Leavitt, an American soldier in the Korean war in 1950, then jumps to the story of Lark, a girl living in West Virginia in 1959, and then to her aunt Nonie, and then to her brother Termite, and around and about. It takes a while (almost to the end of the book) to see how some of these stories are connected, and when I read that some of the chapters have been previously published as short stories, I saw that in some sense they never really were connected. Termite's chapters are very abstract, which makes them difficult, but they are worth the effort in the end.
Once I managed to sink all the way into the book, I liked it more. I got the sense that Phillips pulled together her favourite shorter pieces of fiction and knit them into a novel. It was satisfying, but to me it felt like piecework and not a unified effort. A more definitive ending (or, even better, a more definitive conflict) might have helped, but I think this style of novel just isn't to my taste.
This book takes a little work to get into: it starts with the story of Robert Leavitt, an American soldier in the Korean war in 1950, then jumps to the story of Lark, a girl living in West Virginia in 1959, and then to her aunt Nonie, and then to her brother Termite, and around and about. It takes a while (almost to the end of the book) to see how some of these stories are connected, and when I read that some of the chapters have been previously published as short stories, I saw that in some sense they never really were connected. Termite's chapters are very abstract, which makes them difficult, but they are worth the effort in the end.
Once I managed to sink all the way into the book, I liked it more. I got the sense that Phillips pulled together her favourite shorter pieces of fiction and knit them into a novel. It was satisfying, but to me it felt like piecework and not a unified effort. A more definitive ending (or, even better, a more definitive conflict) might have helped, but I think this style of novel just isn't to my taste.
Back to all reviews by this member
Back to all reviews of this book
Back to Book Reviews
Back to Book Details
Back to all reviews of this book
Back to Book Reviews
Back to Book Details
