Lake Overturn: A Novel
A novel set in a small Idaho town where rumors of catastrophe, family secrets, and adolescent friendship become entangled. Rather than a single big event, the story is driven by the frail connections among lonely people.
Work Information
The loneliness of a small town spreads quietly from person to person.
Vestal McIntyre's novel intertwines a scientific mystery with the emotional shifts of people living in a small town. The structure is intricate, but at its center is the urgent need to connect.
Book Information
- Publisher
- Harper
- Published
- 2009-04-21
- Pages
- 448 pages
- Language
- 英語
- Size
- 15.24 x 3.48 x 22.86 cm
- ISBN-13
- 9780061671166
- ISBN-10
- 0061671169
- Price
- 9124 JPY
- Category
- 洋書/Literature & Fiction/Genre Fiction/Historical
“Striking.... An author is lucky to bring one character so vividly to life: the gifted McIntyre has done it for all of his.” — New York Times Book Review “I felt as if I were reading a modern-day Middlemarch .” — Kate Christensen, PEN/Faulkner Award-winning author of The Great Man A finalist for the Lambda Literary Award and the Publishing Triangle’s Ferro-Grumley Award, Lake Overturn is the stirring debut novel of small-town America from critically acclaimed author Vestal McIntyre ( You Are Not the One ). With intricate plots involving an array of fully realized characters, and dealing with themes such as autism, homosexuality, religion, and addiction, Lake Overturn is sure to appeal to fans of the literary work of Russell Banks ( The Sweet Hereafter, Affliction ), Rick Moody ( The Ice Storm ), Augusten Burroughs ( Running with Scissors ), and Alice Munro ( The Moons of Jupiter, The Love of a Good Woman ).
Vestal McIntyre's story collection, You Are Not the One , won a Lambda Literary Award and earned him fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York Foundation for the Arts.
Reviews
-
Five Stars
Wonderful character development
-
Five Stars
All ok
-
Talented author
Good book but wished the story had moved on a bit quicker. So many characters in this little Idaho town. Not someplace that I would ever want to live. I would like to read what Vestal McIntyre comes up with next.
-
Middlemarch in Idaho
A story or stories about Mormons, Mennonites, Methodists and Mexicans, in 1986, in a small town in a part of Idaho that would be arid desert without the Snake River. Some characters journey to Boise, to Salt Lake City, where they penetrate the innermost Tabernacle sanctums, and even to Portland, where they meet people straight out of "Things White People Like." It does have a certain flavor of being collection of separate stories linked by the framing device of being set in a small town, but the interlinking is done so cleverly that narrative flow is not lost. I tend to like novels that are leaner and meaner and funnier, but this is so good that I found myself compelled to read it to the end to find out what happened next to the characters I was interested in. There are no patches of bad writing, but there are a few too many patches of good writing. McIntyre can write memorable stuff like " Wanda turned and witnessed the glowing Columbia bent into an S by the slopes of the gorge , which lay against each other like folds of fabric, each a paler shade of blue, off into the distance." That is wonderful prose. Evelyn Waugh or John Updike might have written it, but then they would have gone back over their manuscript and remorselessly cut it out. Elmore Leonard wouldn't have written it in first place, he'd have been getting on with the story.
-
Nope....did not do it for me.
Lake Overturn was a great disappointment. It was not exciting, had no plot, was very predictable, and had an abrupt non-climatic ending. I would compare it to two old ladies gossiping in church about the other town folk.