You know the expression “This is not your grandma’s epic novel”? Well, this is your grandma’s epic novel, anodyne but...
The history of a Midwestern town founded by Swedish immigrants, including both lives and afterlives, from 1889 to 2021.
“Over the years, the mail-order bride business had been fraught with pitfalls and disappointments.” Not this time. The big, ambitious Swede Lordor Nordstrom and the nearsighted little wife who answers his ad fall quickly, madly in love. Lordor goes on to start a family, to incorporate Elmwood Springs, Missouri, and become its mayor, and also to donate a panoramic parcel of land for its community cemetery. And then he dies. “Shortly after the funeral, the strangest thing happened. Lordor Nordstrom woke up.” Turns out, after people die, they remain as spirits in the cemetery, at least for a while; at a certain point the souls disappear from the gossipy spirit kaffeeklatsch for parts to be revealed. As this tale winds through the decades and generations, two communities flourish, one of the living and one of the dead. Flagg (The All-Girl Filling Station’s Last Reunion, 2013, etc.) does a clever job of tracking her clan of interconnected families through the decades, including a drive-by from Bonnie and Clyde, a visit from Harry Truman, four different wars, the birth and death of downtown, and finally modern plagues including drugs, unemployment, and deaths from texting. There’s even a murder mystery woven in, the untimely and suspicious death of a particularly beloved resident which the spirits are determined to investigate and avenge. Much of the fun of the book happens in the graveyard, with conversations like this: “I went to your funeral and sent you flowers.” “Thank you. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to reciprocate.” “My hip doesn’t hurt anymore, but…I’m not happy….I hate that I’m dead, that’s why. I’ve been saving for ten years to be able to make that trip to California, and now I’m not ever going, and the ticket was nonrefundable.”
You know the expression “This is not your grandma’s epic novel”? Well, this is your grandma’s epic novel, anodyne but sweeping in its sweet way, full of home truths and consolation.Pub Date: Nov. 29, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4000-6595-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Oct. 5, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
