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Title: Stones for Ibarra (Contemporary American Fiction) by Harriet Doerr ISBN: 0-14-007562-3 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 01 January, 1988 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.33 (18 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Stones for Ibarra
Comment: There is a quiet poignancy to Harriet Doerr's first novel, "Stones for Ibarra." Harriet Doerr writes of ordinary events in the lives of ordinary people. But, somehow, seen through the eyes of this talented author, every ordinary thing is transformed into something extraordinary.
This book spans the lives of Sara Everton and her husband, Richard. At the start of the novel, the Evertons have sold their possessions and are traveling through rural Mexico in order to begin a new life. They move into a vacant hacienda and re-open a copper mine which was abandoned sixty years earlier by Richard's grandfather. The hacienda and mine are on the outskirts of Ibarra, a village with 1 taxicab, 1 telephone and less than 1000 people. The nearest town is 80 kilometers away. Within six months of their arrival, Richard is diagnosed with leukemia. The Evertons approach their final years together with remarkable serenity and peace of mind. The imaginative, easily distracted Sara reflects upon her life and the lives of those around her with an almost childlike wonder.
This book is reminescent of Sherwood Anderson's "Winesburg, Ohio." Like Anderson, Harriet Doerr has a gift for turning the mundane into something remarkable and the ordinary into something extraordinary.
Rating: 5
Summary: A big mistake
Comment: Richard and Sara Everton move from a sophisticated life in San Francisco to an old adobe house in super-rural Mexico where, on some harebrained idea, they think they can make a go of it by re-opening a copper mine abandoned by Richard's grandfather. It's an idyllic dream, and there are many good moments. But from the very opening of the book, we're told Richard will die, Sara will deny their problems till the end, and they will leave Ibarra without having achieved their dreams. The range and depth of characters in the little town, the juxtaposition of one culture against another, the assimilation of the atheistic Americans into the intensely Catholic community, the gorgeous descriptions of the landscapes, and the many side stories of the myriad characters all contribute to this book's perennial popularity. One gets the sense that the author's love and affection for her characters is real.
It's a beautifully written book, and it's certainly incredible that Harriet Doerr wrote it, her first book (at least the first to be published), when she herself was already an old woman
Rating: 5
Summary: Read it Again in 15 Years
Comment: I bought this book when I was in my mid-30s, but it took until my late 40s to understand and appreciate it. Now I can only hang my head ask myself, "Was I really that stupid?"
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Title: Consider This, Senora by Harriet Doerr ISBN: 0156000024 Publisher: Harvest Books Pub. Date: 15 August, 1994 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: The Tiger in the Grass: Stories and Other Inventions by Harriet Doerr ISBN: 0140251480 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 01 October, 1996 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: On Mexican Time: A New Life in San Miguel by Tony Cohan ISBN: 0767903196 Publisher: Broadway Books Pub. Date: 09 January, 2001 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: God and Mr. Gomez by Jack C. Smith ISBN: 1883792681 Publisher: Los Angeles Times Books Pub. Date: May, 2003 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: The Vision of Emma Blau : A Novel by Ursula Hegi ISBN: 0684872730 Publisher: Touchstone Pub. Date: 16 January, 2001 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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