Part travelogue, part epistolary novel, this tale will engage fans of family sagas.
Debut historical fiction about an upper-class young woman who begins her marriage by traveling from England to the frontiers of Canada in the early 1900s.
In this ambitious novel, Pekter takes readers on a journey that spans approximately 100 years, beginning with the reckless decision of Minnie Sinclair to marry a man she hardly knows. When she meets Harry Worthing Jr. in London, she’s immediately infatuated, forsaking her former love interest as well as her familial obligations to remain near her childhood home. After a whirlwind courtship, she crosses the Atlantic as the new Mrs. Worthing, ready to tackle homesteading in the Dominion of Canada. Unfortunately, the harsh realities of life on the unforgiving Canadian plains quickly change Harry, who becomes cruel. In many letters written to her lifelong friend Emily McCrindle, Minnie discloses the difficult emotional and physical struggles she faces. Emily proves a faithful pen pal and friend, ultimately traveling to Grand Prairie, Alberta, to help Minnie raise her children. The Minnie who awaits Emily on the homestead is much changed, and Emily knows she was right to come. After an additional tragedy strikes the family in Grand Prairie, they relocate to Victoria, where they form new relationships, resulting in multiple generations over several decades. Despite the apparent progress of Minnie’s children and grandchildren, the secrets of her life in Grand Prairie continue to haunt them until they uncover shocking truths. Throughout the novel, Pekter uses a stately, classical prose that lends a feeling of authenticity to the characters’ observations: “The wind has ceased. Its voice must feel as dry and cracked as my hands—both of us exposed to the cold.” There’s a languidness in the first half of the story that deftly reflects the lifestyle of the characters of the era, but the pace gets faster as the plot ascends into the modern era. Along the way, the author presents intriguing details about life on the Canadian Prairies at the turn of the 20th century and about the long-lasting psychological effects of impulsive choices.
Part travelogue, part epistolary novel, this tale will engage fans of family sagas.Pub Date: June 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4602-7792-8
Page Count: 270
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Britisher Swift's sixth novel (Ever After, 1992 etc.) and fourth to appear here is a slow-to-start but then captivating tale of English working-class families in the four decades following WW II. When Jack Dodds dies suddenly of cancer after years of running a butcher shop in London, he leaves a strange request—namely, that his ashes be scattered off Margate pier into the sea. And who could better be suited to fulfill this wish than his three oldest drinking buddies—insurance man Ray, vegetable seller Lenny, and undertaker Vic, all of whom, like Jack himself, fought also as soldiers or sailors in the long-ago world war. Swift's narrative start, with its potential for the melodramatic, is developed instead with an economy, heart, and eye that release (through the characters' own voices, one after another) the story's humanity and depth instead of its schmaltz. The jokes may be weak and self- conscious when the three old friends meet at their local pub in the company of the urn holding Jack's ashes; but once the group gets on the road, in an expensive car driven by Jack's adoptive son, Vince, the story starts gradually to move forward, cohere, and deepen. The reader learns in time why it is that no wife comes along, why three marriages out of three broke apart, and why Vince always hated his stepfather Jack and still does—or so he thinks. There will be stories of innocent youth, suffering wives, early loves, lost daughters, secret affairs, and old antagonisms—including a fistfight over the dead on an English hilltop, and a strewing of Jack's ashes into roiling seawaves that will draw up feelings perhaps unexpectedly strong. Without affectation, Swift listens closely to the lives that are his subject and creates a songbook of voices part lyric, part epic, part working-class social realism—with, in all, the ring to it of the honest, human, and true.
Pub Date: April 5, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-41224-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1996
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