Fans of Wendell Berry, Kent Haruf, and David Rhodes will enjoy this simple and straightforward story of a farm family in crisis. Father Tup, mother Doris and children Sonny, Dodie and Beston live by the seasons and reside in routines, working the land that has been in Tup’s family for generations. They are good and generous people, whose lives are turned upside down. The author simply puts them compassionately under the microscope, and what we see is a slice of humanity.
I love a story with a very small cast of ‘salt of the earth’ characters that I can care deeply about. Definitely character driven and not fast paced, this is a quiet and reflective work of fiction, but I never found it boring. Hall’s characters are fascinating. At several points the mother, who has removed herself emotionally from the family even though she is physically present remarks, “I just need time to return to myself.” The characters are ordinary people trying to do good in the best way they can. Aren’t we all? This book felt very soothing in the challenging and uncertain season that we find ourselves in.
Hall writes so beautifully and unsentimentally from a depth of understanding of grief and suffering. Yet there is a lightness and buoyancy to the prose, it never feels heavy or laborious. Her wisdom is hard-won. The author also has written a moving memoir about her own journey through challenging times, which I look forward to reading (Without a Map).
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