A bland and predictable addition to a series that has had both hits and misses.
The latest Elm Creek Quilts novel (Circle of Quilters, 2006, etc.) moves west from the Pennsylvania manor to follow the adventures of Sylvia Bergstrom Compson’s older cousin Elizabeth.
In 1925 (when series grande dame Sylvia is just a child), Elizabeth Bergstrom marries Henry Nelson, who wants to give his young bride a home to match her beloved Elm Creek Manor. So Henry stakes everything he has to buy a cattle ranch in Southern California. The two pack up their wedding gifts, including a number of beautifully sewn Bergstrom quilts, and head off to what they expect will be a prosperous life. But when they arrive at the land office, poor Henry discovers he’s been duped with an invalid deed, leaving the newlyweds destitute. Luckily, the Jorgensens, rightful owners of the ranch, hire Henry to work in the field and give the decidedly genteel Elizabeth a job as housemaid. Of course, the couple could wire home for return train fare, but Henry is too proud, stubborn and ashamed to go back to Pennsylvania, so it will be a long life of labor before the two can realize their dream of owning a ranch in the rapidly urbanizing California landscape. Woven throughout is the tale of the Rodriguez family, original owners of the ranch. Rodriguez descendant Rosa is trapped in an ugly marriage from which Elizabeth hopes to save her. Meanwhile, the love triangle of Rosa, her cuckolded husband and Lars Jorgensen provides a much-needed melodramatic counterpoint to the lackluster tale of Henry and Elizabeth’s struggles. These strangely discordant plot lines merge in the guns-blazing finale that serves to rescue all involved.
A bland and predictable addition to a series that has had both hits and misses.Pub Date: April 10, 2007
ISBN: 0-7432-6022-8
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2007
A bittersweet slip of a debut novel about an Army brat named Katie, skating toward adolescence on a base in Texas in the early Sixties. In the aftermath of her mother's death, Katie's home becomes a hostile environment, even though her rebellious older sister, Diane, generally takes the worst blows from their physically abusive father. Under her bed while the battles rage, Katie entreats God not only to send her mother back, but for breasts and a period. Indeed, her yearning to join the secret sisterhood of women is ever on her mind, particularly when she hears Diane sneaking back into the house late at night after trysts with her boyfriend, Dickie Mac (who has a truck and a new litter of puppies!). Meanwhile, next door, Katie's sometimes best friend, Cherylanne, instructs her in the application of eye shadows and lipsticks with names like ``Barely There.'' Things might just go on as they are—because Katie's clearly a survivor made in the mold of Frankie in Member of the Wedding—but then her father announces that they must move yet again, causing Diane to run away with Dickie and taking Katie along. In the end, Katie returns alone: home is better than sleeping on motel room floors, and she suddenly finds herself sorry for her dad. Hope and sorrow mingle at the close of this finely observed, compassionate book. More from Berg will definitely be welcome.
Pub Date: May 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-679-42208-0
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1993
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A luminously written first novel that celebrates—not always convincingly—a surviving sibling's redemption and gratitude. When younger brother Gabe Catts comes home to north Florida for his brother Michael's funeral, he's been drinking, and he soon flees the family and heads back to New York, where he teaches college. Gabe is overcome by more than conventional grief, it seems, and the story he tells is as much a journey of self- discovery as of brotherly love and destructive jealousy. It begins in the small neighborhood of Magnolia Hill, where Gabe grew up and where his mother still lives. His father was a millworker. He had two siblings, a sister, Candace, and then Michael, named (like Gabe) after an angel. Next door, in a tumbledown house, lived the Sims—a mother and father with two children, Ira and Myra. Gabe falls in love with Myra. But the Simses are different: Dad beats up Ira and sexually abuses Myra, and when Dad is arrested, the family moves away. Meanwhile, Michael, a promising baseball player, turns down offers and stays home to help his parents, and Gabe, who's never forgotten Myra, goes on to college and graduate school. Myra comes back to Magnolia Hill and soon marries Michael, a union that the self-absorbed Gabe finds tough to accept. He flees north, combining a successful academic career with bouts of heavy, near- suicidal, drinking. Having taken time off to write a book, he returns home once more, seduces and impregnates Myra, by now being treated for schizophrenia, then flees when his betrayal is discovered. Ten years later, dying from cancer, Michael asks Gabe to look after his family. He also leaves him a lot of money, and with some bumps along the way, Gabe finds both happiness and his soul, just as his brother had hoped. A bit too schematic, but a refreshingly different take on fraternal rivalry.
Pub Date: March 1, 1997
ISBN: 1-56164-124-3
Page Count: 304
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1997
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