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Title: A Southern Family by Gail Godwin ISBN: 0-380-72987-3 Publisher: Avon Pub. Date: 01 May, 1997 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.25 (4 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: Interesting read
Comment: If you are looking for a cheerful fluffy book ~~ this book isn't it. This is a detailed look into one family's life ~~ before, during and after the middle child dies. Actually, this book is more of reminisces ~~ a cluster of stories that revolved around the dead character as well as each individual characters' lives.
It's an interesting book ~~ but it did feel like it was dragging on too long in some places. It's depressing but uplifting at the same time. It's a look at the complicatated relationships between mother and son, husband and wife, wife and inlaws, brothers and sister, friends and so on. It's very fascinating ~~ a glimpse into people's private lives. The Quicks will be a family that you won't soon forget. There is Lily, the mother, Ralph, her husband, Clare, her daughter, Julia, Clare's friend from childhood on, Snow, the daughter-in-law and mother of the only grandchild, Felix, Clare's lover, Rafe, the younger brother and Theo, the middle child who kills himself and his girlfriend, leaving behind broken family ties that his family had to begin to ravel together again.
It's a book on life and grief and hope. It's well-written and thoughtful ~~ but it could have gone at least a 150 pages less ~~ but that's just my opinion.
3-30-04
Rating: 2
Summary: What a Bummer
Comment: When I wanted to stop reading this book, I already had read half of it and kept plodding through it, waiting for it to get better. This definitely is not an unlifting book. Each chapter is spent on members and close friends of this Southern Family and their own personal histories up to the time their brother, friend, or father dies--and how they react or don't react to his death. What I found unbelievable is how this dead man's 3 year old son supposedly acts. What three year old thinks in full paragraphs? Can there really people that many dysfunctional people all in one family?
Rating: 5
Summary: A moving, heartfelt, realistic novel
Comment: I've read all of Gail Godwin's books, and this is my favorite. She's working with material that seems to mean a great deal to her here --and it shows. The book is basically several character's reactions to a very tragic death. Each character is drawn exquisitely, coming alive through his or her own point-of-view chapters. In fact, this is the only one of Godwin's books to present the point of view of so many complex characters. I saw her in a bookstore seveal years ago and asked her what the origin of the book was, and she said she was working from a similar incident in real life--the death of her half-brother. So in this book she seems to be trying to come to terms with family conflicts by bringing each family member to life on the page. She does a wonderful job, going beyond any kind of therapy for herself into true art, taking her own pain and making it universal. I reread this book every once in a while, and found it especially useful recently because I was going through my own reactions to a death in my family. Yes, to respond to one of the other reviews, there is hatred here, and conflicts are not resolved. It's very, very true to life that way, complex and rich.
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Title: Mother and Two Daughters by Gail Godwin ISBN: 0345389239 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 09 August, 1994 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Father Melancholy's Daughter by Gail Godwin ISBN: 0380729865 Publisher: Avon Pub. Date: 01 May, 1997 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: The Good Husband by Gail Godwin ISBN: 0345396456 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 10 July, 1995 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: Evensong by Gail Godwin ISBN: 0345434773 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 29 February, 2000 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: The Finishing School by GAIL GODWIN ISBN: 0345431901 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 20 April, 1999 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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