Specify Of Books The Cradle
Title | : | The Cradle |
Author | : | Patrick Somerville |
Book Format | : | Hardcover |
Book Edition | : | First Edition |
Pages | : | Pages: 200 pages |
Published | : | March 9th 2009 by Little, Brown and Company |
Categories | : | Fiction. Novels. Contemporary. Parenting. Adoption. Relationships |
Patrick Somerville
Hardcover | Pages: 200 pages Rating: 3.34 | 1687 Users | 361 Reviews
Description Conducive To Books The Cradle
Barnes & Noble Discover Great New WritersMarissa is expecting her first child and fixated on securing the same cradle she was once rocked in for her own baby. But her mother, Caroline, disappeared when Marissa was a teenager, and the treasured cradle mysteriously vanished shortly thereafter. Marissa's husband, Matthew, kindly agrees to try to track down the cradle, which naturally means finding Caroline as well.
In another family, Adam has just joined the Marines and is off to Iraq. His mother, Renee, is terrified of losing him, and furious at both Adam for enlisting and her husband for being so mild-mannered about it all. To further complicate matters, Renee is troubled by the resurfacing of secrets she buried long ago: the memory of her first love, killed in Vietnam, and the son she gave up at birth.
Matt's search for the cradle takes him through the Midwest, and provides an introduction to a host of oddball characters who've been part of Caroline's life in the intervening years. When he finds the cradle, he also
finds an unloved little boy, who will one day reunite a family adrift. A lovely debut novel, The Cradle is an astonishingly spare tale of feeling lost in the world, and the simple, momentous acts of love that bring people home. (Summer 2009 Selection)
Define Books Concering The Cradle
Original Title: | The Cradle |
ISBN: | 0316036129 (ISBN13: 9780316036122) |
Edition Language: | English URL http://www.hachettebookgroup.com/books_9780316036122.htm |
Rating Of Books The Cradle
Ratings: 3.34 From 1687 Users | 361 ReviewsCommentary Of Books The Cradle
My initial response to the first 20 pages of this book was "schmultz". I braced myself for fluffy, movie-of-the-week, sentimental cotton candy. To it's credit, once the plot got rolling, the histories of the two main characters created resonantly human voices.The story divides itself between two timelines. One centers on Matt Bishop in the late 90's on a quest to retrieve his wife's cradle from her childhood. The other a decade further on in the late 2000's anchored by Renee Owens. A belovedThis is a powerful and haunting novel that snuck up on me. It seems like a simple story at first but around page 81 it really picks up steam and I felt myself almost obsessed with the story. It became a propulsive reading experience after that, one in which I felt close to the characters--maybe I even cried a little at some point. I think this book might get pretty huge once it's out in paperback and if a movie is actually made of it (it was optioned recently). A superb piece of work from Mr.
Really enjoyed this book for various reasons. The Upper Midwest setting not only was familiar to me, but the author nailed the attitudes and speech patterns of the area. Most of all, I appreciated the protagonist. Matt could have been portrayed as a person whose difficult childhood made him a mess as an adult, but instead, apart from a moment or two, he had a full, competent grasp on life. I also liked seeing a young, lower-middle class family portrayed, a socio-economic group that is woefully
Boring. This guy is not a great writer. The story was dull and predictable. The characters were uninteresting. I gave it two stars because it was short enough to give me something to do while I waited for my car to get fixed.
A story of family - what it means to build a family when you have grown up without one or with a fractured one. I liked the main thread of the story much better than the secondary thread and thought they were tied together rather artificially.
(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com:]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted here illegally.)I had been looking forward to Patrick Somerville's debut novel The Cradle for some time now; after all, he's a Chicago-based author with whom I share several mutual friends, and this slim title of his has picked up lots of local accolades this year, one of what I consider the most talked-about
Premise seemed so absurd--pregnant wife asks husband to find Civil-War-era cradle she was once rocked in--that I thought, okay, this has got to be good. Turned out: I was wrong. Some momentum generated in the beginning, and yeah, the two plot lines are able to summon a bit of mystery, but the fact that this is a quest lends itself to the sort of pitfalls you'd expect, mainly that what we get is a number of flat, stereotypical characters. Doesn't help that the writing itself is dull masquerading
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