Two of my all-time favorite
authors, Barbara Kingsolver and Kate Morton, each published a book last October
and it was wonderful reading/listening to them simultaneously. While
generally very different story tellers, in this case, they actually share 2 important
things: 1) the story line shifts back and forth from past to present - common
with Morton but not Kingsolver and 2)a house is a central part of the plot. And
because the queue of my reads always holds a mystery, I was delighted to
read last fall’s best seller, Lethal White. All 3, not to be missed if, like
me, you are late to this party. Connie
Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver (pub 10.16.18
500K Harper)
Alternating between the present and the 1880’s the plot is
centered in Vineland, NJ.
Present: When Willa Knox’ husband takes a teaching job
nearby, Willa’s family moves into an old house she inherited, but which is in
the process of literally falling down around their ears. That family consists
of Iano, her college professor husband, Nick, Iano’s cantankerous Greek father,
Nick, Zeke, her ivy league education son who becomes a single parent to Dusty
when his gorgeous bi-polar wife commits suicide, and Tig the feisty daughter.
Can she literally save her home by proving its historical
significance?
1880’s: Thatcher Greenwood is the local science teacher who finds himself the
target of his creationist boss when he speaks about a new theory posed by
Charles Darwin. His wife and mother-in-law (in whose run down home they are
living) are more interested in status and ignore Greenwoods financial problems.
His only relief is spending time with Mary Treat, the amazing woman scientist
living next door and a rebel newspaperman who see through the fallacy of the
Utopian community that is Vineland.
Kingsolver’s environmental and political beliefs, as she
always manages to do in her stories, land seamlessly in the plot.
-------------
The Clockmaker’s Daughter
by Kate Morton (pub. 10.09.18)
In her recognizable format of past and present set in
England, Ms. Morton sends us from the present to the past beginning in 1862 and
moving through WWII with Birchwood Manor as one of the main characters and a
ghost as another
While told in several voices, the ghost begins her narration
with:
My real name, no one remembers.
The truth about that summer, no one else knows.
This narrator tells the story of how she came to be there, of the young artist Edward Radcliffe who owned the home, of a missing priceless necklace, and of murder. Today the ghost follows Elodie Winslow, a London archivist who uncovers a satchel containing an artist’s sketchbook with a drawing of a twin-gabled house along a river and a photo of a woman in Victorian clothing. Elodie knows this house, but how?
The truth about that summer, no one else knows.
This narrator tells the story of how she came to be there, of the young artist Edward Radcliffe who owned the home, of a missing priceless necklace, and of murder. Today the ghost follows Elodie Winslow, a London archivist who uncovers a satchel containing an artist’s sketchbook with a drawing of a twin-gabled house along a river and a photo of a woman in Victorian clothing. Elodie knows this house, but how?
