Major Pettigrew's Last Stand
Edgecombe St. Mary is a small village in the English countryside and home to 68-year-old Major Ernest Pettigrew -
a sincere, honest and undeniably appealing character.
Shocked and depressed at the news of his brother's death, he retreats deeper into his solitary life at the news, and it is the surprising kindness of a demure Pakistani shopkeeper that offers him what little comfort he can find. Their chats and quiet readings become a highlight in his otherwise dreary existence. As his private club prepares for a festive event, he finds himself in her company, as well as that of his city banker son - a young man whose interests seem to center entirely on his own monetary successes and the shallow concerns they bring. When the evening suddenly shifts in tenor, Major Pettigrew finds himself in the position of unwittingly supporting the people whose opinions he detests -
and putting into jeopardy a friendship that has become so much more. With all the bravado he can muster he defies both her family's prejudices and the narrow mindedness of his town's citizens and finds himself in a position he could never have imagined.
Rich with the eccentric and warmhearted characters that seem to inhabit small and close knit villages -
and families and neighborhoods worldwide -
author Helen Simonson provides her first novel penned with eyes open to both the mores that numbingly dictate lives and the courage that it takes to step away from them. Her characters offer depth into the questions of what is proper, what is honest and what is worth fighting for.
Comforting, amusing, romantic, stimulating and intelligent, "Major Pettigrew's Last Stand" is an accomplished first novel.
tinkers
Pulitzer Prize winning author Paul Harding provides his first novel with "tinkers" - the story of George Washington Crosby as he lies dying.
His hallucinations carry him back to events in his past -
building a home, working with the materials of its construction, buying and repairing an old clock, a discussion regarding buying soap -
and deep enough in his history to reunite him with his father. Harding writes: "George Crosby remembered many things as he died, but in an order he could not control. To look at his life, to take the stock he always imagined a man would at his end, was to witness a shifting mass, the tiles of a mosaic spinning, swirling, reportraying, always in recognizable swaths of colors, familiar elements, molecular units, intimate currents, but also independent now of his will, showing him a different self every time he tried to make an assessment."
Scenes from his modest New England youth replay, intertwined with short passages describing the minutiae of a life - finding a book in a dusty attic, building a bird's nest, assembling a dismantled clock - carrying the story with infinite precision and clarity, though its images float in unsecured space.
A reflection on life, family, loss, love and all that nature encompasses, "tinkers" is a well crafted read that exhibits Harding's considerable talent. He has an MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop and taught writing at Harvard and the University of Iowa.