What We’re Reading

The Center of Winter | Marya Hornbacher

Rating:

This is not the book to read if you’re looking for a happy story. Which isn’t to say that it doesn’t end well, but it’s not going to leave you feeling uplifted and light.

Set in small town Minnesota, this is the story of a family. A mother who never quite wanted to be, a father who can’t quite get it right, and isn’t happy enough with what he has, a son who gets lost inside himself, and a daughter just trying to keep up. The story is told from ever side, each looking a little different.

Claire speaks to trying to cope first with a drunk, depressed husband, and then to life without him. Esau speaks to his time in the hospital, and to trying to cope with life outside of it. Kate speaks to all of it. Her missing brother, her lost father, her mother, lost in a different way. Trying to fit the pieces together.

The book is beautifully written, and seeing the story unfold through three sets of very separate eyes is…for sudden lack of a better term, eye-opening, to say the least. Fans of Hornbacher’s memoir will likely enjoy her foray into ficiton, as will anyone who appreciates a good book.

Find it in the catalog

The The Center of Winter | Marya Hornbacher by Jaemi, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 14th, 2007 at 10:38 am by Jaemi and is filed under Book Review. Find similar posts by selecting and of the following tags: adult fiction, death/loss, emotional problems, family problems, interpersonal relationships, minnesota, suicide, suicide survivors. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.