Carrie Brown (1) (1959–)

Coming-of-age novels mostly follow the same outline — childhood wonder crashes into harsh reality — and Carrie Brown's “The Rope Walk” (2007) is no exception. Just the same, the novel is both original and exceptional. That it is not more widely read is a shame.

Alice, who lives with her widowed father, Archie, and much older brothers, celebrates her 10th birthday as the novel opens. And so begins the most wonderful summer of her life, and yet also the cruelest.

On that day, Theo, a mixed-race boy of about her age, comes to live with her temporarily. His mother is experiencing extreme depression and his grandmother has been hospitalized. Archie agrees to let the boy stay with them for a few weeks. He is like the best birthday gift ever.

Theo turns out to be a creative, game-for-anything child who brings a tool box with him, but very few clothes. The summer days become one adventure after another. "He was the kind of boy she didn't think she would get tired of," Brown writes.

Nearby lives Kenneth, a famous artist in declining health. Alice is asked to read to him each day, and Kenneth chooses “The Journals of Lewis and Clark,” a book that feeds Theo's thirst for adventure as he listens along with the old man.

As a secret gift for Kenneth, the children decide to build a rope walk through the nearby forest so that the old man will be able to experience nature on his own and find his way back home again. Their naive kindness leads to tragedy.

I don't know if “The Journals of Lewis and Clark” is a great book for reading out loud, but I'm sure “The Rope Walk” would be. Many passages in the story are utterly beautiful, and I discovered myself reading them aloud.

Like “Lamb in Love,” another Carrie Brown novel, “The Rope Walk” is a gem that deserves a comeback in bookstores.… (más)

A truly stunning novel about discoveries large and small, the universe, scholarship and true dedication. William Herschel is an amazing scientist, musician, teacher, and loving brother. But it is his younger sister Caroline who understands and provides most of what he needs that allows him to become a renowned genius.

William is Caroline's hero and mentor, and the one that saves her from her abusive mother and brother, and potentially from a loveless, painful marriage. She owes him much. As a woman in the 18th Century she is dependent on him for everything. But she thinks intelligently and independently; and knows she is missing another type of life, as wife and mother.

Brown has written an excellent historical fictional story exploring family dynamics, gender roles, religion and G-d, science, the endless demands placed on women, the impact of poverty and wealth, and of course, love. Always love.

Carrie Brown is a brilliant writer. Her novels are star-studded!… (más)

I'm not going to lie, here, this is a slow moving book. There are moments of shattering betrayal and cruelty, but there are far more moments of grueling work, with the brother in the grip of an obsession with the stars and the sister starved for intellectual flight. Yet I found both Lina and the book combine an overarching sweetness and a gritty determination not to be ignored that made it impossible to stop reading. I wanted to know more about her world, her quest, her future. Mesmerizing and lyrical, with the kinds of well written portraiture of place that sets a historical story firmly in the imagination.

Advanced Reader's Copy provided by Edelweiss.… (más)

Vida Stephen at forty-one years of age is considered a spinster in her rural English village. She lives a simple life of being the nanny to a mute young man with mental challenges. She has cared for Manford Perry practically all his life after his mother died young and his father is often away for long periods of time, traveling overseas. Vida and Manford are all alone in the gigantic Southend House with its myriad of dusty and dim unused rooms. In truth they are all they know. The community collectively shakes its head and tsks, of the opinion Vida is wasting away caring for Manford all alone in the sad and crumbling mansion.
Then there is Norris Lamb. He thinks differently of Vida. Even though he has known her (and her situation for years) he has begun to slowly, slowly fall in love with her. Like Vida, he is single with seemingly one purpose in life, to be the village's postmaster. His world centers on stamps. They represent the wonderment of worlds untraveled. When his love for Vida takes him in new directions it is as if he doesn't recognize his old life anymore.
Vida, Manford, and Norris all go through a metamorphosis of sorts. I don't think it is a spoiler to say this changing, by the end of the story, offers hope for a new beginning for each of them.
Brown's writing had the ability to make me change my mind several times about each character. I oscillated between wanting triumph and hoping for failure and back again. As an aside, I loved the way the moon was almost another character in the book. It is not a plot spoiler to say I loved how the moon caused Vida to dance with wild abandon at the fountain and kept Norris company on his lonely walk home. Additionally, there is the fact that on July 31st of that summer a man has done the unthinkable by actually walking on the moon.… (más)