I love novels set along the coast; this one is set in Maine, and I was swept up by the author's descriptions of its history and natural beauty.
The themes of the sacredness of the land and a conflict over the legacy of a small peninsula resonated with me and is one I explore in my own work.
Even more compelling, the novel offers a marvelous exploration of women’s lives and is one of the best depictions of female friendship I’ve ever read. It’s unusual in that the women are elderly, friends of a lifetime, and have arresting and very different personalities.
Dark renders them with wisdom, depth, and sheer heart. I also loved the author’s keen observations and the novel’s leisurely pace. I sank into the story like a wicker swing on an old porch, and I couldn’t bear for it to end.
The masterful story of a lifelong friendship between two very different women with shared histories and buried secrets, tested in the twilight of their lives, set across the arc of the 20th century.
Celebrated children's book author Agnes Lee is determined to secure her legacy-to complete what she knows will be the final volume of her pseudonymously written Franklin Square novels; and even more consuming, to permanently protect the peninsula of majestic coast in Maine known as Fellowship Point. To donate the land to a trust, Agnes must convince shareholders to dissolve a generations-old partnership. And one of those shareholders…
I was active in the anti-war movement in the late 1960s and found Ergnoski's depiction of those times as one of the very best of any I've ever read in a novel.
The story takes place primarily in the present, and I particularly appreciated the way she framed the story with the danger of wildfires raging throughout Florida to echo the political fires that raged in the 60s of the main character's youth. The novel is, at heart, about a sibling relationship and the different roles children take on within a family constellation.
The author depicts their emotions and inner life so well that there were many times when I had to stop and reread a sentence because of how well she captured them or described something in an arresting way.
I loved this book for two main reasons. First, the first-person voice of Demon (who is a modern-day David Copperfield) is enormously appealing. The character is born into a terrible home situation, and much of the book is his downward spiral into opioid addiction before he climbs back out. Yet, Demon is so resilient and upbeat and charming that within pages, you not only can’t put the book down, but you want to adopt him and bring him home.
My second reason for loving the book is Kingsolver’s glorious prose when writing about the natural world. The world of Appalachia, the forests and fields, comes alive in a way that is sheer technicolor.
Demon's story begins with his traumatic birth to a single mother in a single-wide trailer, looking 'like a little blue prizefighter.' For the life ahead of him he would need all of that fighting spirit, along with buckets of charm, a quick wit, and some unexpected talents, legal and otherwise.
In the southern Appalachian Mountains of Virginia, poverty isn't an idea, it's as natural as the grass grows. For a generation growing up in this world, at the heart of the modern opioid crisis, addiction isn't an abstraction, it's neighbours, parents, and friends. 'Family' could mean love, or reluctant foster…
The Stark Beauty of Last Things is set in Montauk, the far reaches of the famed Hamptons, an area under looming threat from a warming climate and overdevelopment.
Now outsider Clancy, a thirty-six-year-old claims adjuster scarred by his orphan childhood, has inherited an unexpected legacy: the power to decide the fate of Montauk’s last parcel of undeveloped land.
Everyone in town has a stake in the outcome, among them Julienne, an environmentalist and painter fighting to save the landscape that inspires her art; Theresa, a bartender whose trailer park home is jeopardized by coastal erosion; and Molly and Billy, who are struggling to hold onto their property against pressure to sell.
