After a lengthy buildup, which doggedly connects all the characters, however peripheral, there’s a rewarding, bittersweet...
A letter points the way to a castle in Kent, which harbors decades of grim secrets, in Morton’s latest (The House at Riverton, 2008, etc.).
Edie, a young woman underemployed by a London small press, is puzzled when her normally placid mother Meredith receives a long-delayed letter and bursts into tears. The letter, it turns out, is from Juniper, one of the three Blythe sisters who inhabit Milderhurst Castle, where Meredith, as a child during World War II, was evacuated to escape the Blitz. From here the story ricochets between the war years and the early 1990s. The evacuation proves to be an unexpected blessing for Meredith, a shy, bookish girl who’s misunderstood by her working-class family. Her teacher, Thomas Cavill, encourages her to excel in her studies. She finds true kinship with the three daughters of Raymond Blythe, famed author of a children’s classic entitled The True History of the Mud Man. Raymond, demented and delusional, has secluded himself in his tower room. Much to the chagrin of his eldest daughter Percy, Raymond has evinced an intention to disinherit his daughters. Second sister Saffy schemes to escape the castle for London. Percy is alarmed when Lucy, Milderhurst’s last remaining servant, deserts the family for marriage to their clock repairman—Percy's secret crush? Baby sister Juniper meets Thomas when he arrives to check on Meredith. After a whirlwind London love affair, Juniper defies Percy to announce wedding plans. Thrilled, Saffy makes Juniper a party dress and plans an engagement dinner. Juniper and Thomas are due from London by separate trains, but only Juniper shows up. Like Dickens' Miss Havisham, Juniper will grow old, still wearing the tatters of the dress she donned for the fiancé who got away. As Edie plumbs Milderhurst’s many mysteries, she also struggles to learn what short-circuited her mother’s dreams, so briefly kindled 50 years before.
After a lengthy buildup, which doggedly connects all the characters, however peripheral, there’s a rewarding, bittersweet payoff in the author’s most gothic tale yet.Pub Date: Nov. 9, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-4391-5278-2
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2010
An evocative work about love, fate and redemption.
Up beyond Asheville, near where Gunter Mountain falls into Tennessee, evil has come to preach in a house of worship where venomous snakes and other poisons are sacraments.
Cash’s debut novel explores Faulkner/O’Connor country, a place where folks endure a hard life by clinging to God’s truths echoing from hardscrabble churches. With Southern idiom as clear as crystal mountain air, Cash weaves the narrative from multiple threads. Jess Hall is the 9-year-old son of Ben and Julie and beloved younger brother of gentle Stump, his mute, autistic sibling. Clem Barefield is county sheriff, a man with a moral code as tough, weathered and flexible as his gun belt. Adelaide Lyle, once a midwife, is now community matriarch of simple faith and solid conscience. Carson Chambliss is pastor of River Road Church of Christ. He has caught Stump spying, peering into the bedroom of his mother Julie, while she happened to be entertaining the amoral pastor. Julie may have lapsed into carnal sin, but she is also a holy fool. Chambliss convinces Julie to bring Stump to the church to be cured by the laying on of hands. There, Stump suffers a terrible fate. Cash’s characters are brilliant: Chambliss, scarred by burns, is as remorseless as one of his rattlesnakes; Addie, loyal to the old ways, is still strong enough to pry the church’s children away from snake-handling services; Barefield is gentle, empathetic and burdened by tragedy. Stump’s brother Jess is appealingly rendered—immature, confused and feeling responsible for and terrified by the evil he senses and sees around him. As lean and spare as a mountain ballad, Cash’s novel resonates perfectly, so much so that it could easily have been expanded to epic proportions.
An evocative work about love, fate and redemption.Pub Date: April 17, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-06-208814-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: April 2, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2012
Simple story, well told.
From Japanese author Ogawa (The Diving Pool, 2008), the story of a struggling single mother who takes a job looking after an elderly mathematician with an unusual disability.
When the Akebono Housekeeping Agency dispatches the unnamed heroine to the shabby cottage occupied by the titular academic, there is little reason to think she would last any longer than the previous nine women who briefly worked there. He’s clearly not the average client. Seventeen years earlier the professor was in a devastating car accident that left him brain damaged, only able to remember 80 minutes at a time. He gets through the day solving math problems, and attaches notes to his clothes to remember what he needs to do. His memories prior to the accident, however, remain crystal clear, and he survives off the generosity of his widowed sister-in-law, on whose property he lives. Initially he’s not much of a talker, but the sweet, almost childlike housekeeper takes a liking to the vulnerable old man, even as she has to reintroduce herself to him every day. He teaches her about the elegance and order of numbers—his passion—while she dotes on him like a daughter. Through his lessons she sees the unexpected poetry in math and sets about solving some problems of her own. She also introduces him to her ten-year-old son, who he nicknames “Root” because the flat top of his head reminds him of the square-root sign. The professor instantly bonds with the fatherless boy, so she and Root spend more and more time at the professor’s home. The trio begins to resemble a family, with an unspoken understanding of each other that transcends language and convention. Trouble calls, though, when the sister-in-law, who has her own complicated history with the professor, misinterprets the housekeeper’s kindness as something more devious. Ogawa’s disarming exploration of an eccentric relationship reads like a fable, one that deftly balances whimsy with heartache.
Simple story, well told.Pub Date: Feb. 9, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-312-42780-1
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Picador
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2008
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