Happy November! Wow, November in Minnesota has started out warm, with 60 degree weather. It's great. November tends to be the busiest month of my whole year. First my daughter turns 15 on Friday the 13th, then my student teacher leaves so I'm teaching 3 preps and one college class (it's a crazy schedule). I'm also taking a poetry class this month from the Loft Literary Center and trying to write my YA novel for Nanowrimo and of course I am cleaning my house from top to bottom to get ready for the 35 people who come to Thanksgiving dinner. Phew, I'm exhausted just thinking about it.
This month Booksnob's blog is featuring one of my all time favorite authors. In fact, her book, The Cape Ann is one of my top ten all time favorite books ever!! So I am pleased and excited to tell you that Faith Sullivan is the Minnesota Author in the Spotlight here on Booksnob. Yay! I own all of her books. Her new book, Good Night, Mr. Wodehouse goes back to the small town of Harvester, MN where The Cape Ann and The Empress of One also take place. I cannot wait to read it.
Here are some of her books and the synopsis from Goodreads:
Good Night, Mr. Wodehouse
Throughout her life, Nell Stillman has struggled to find meaning in an increasingly chaotic world. A complicated marriage to a boorish husband; an early widowhood spent longing for her congressman lover; the loss of her child, a shell shocked WWI hero — her road has not been easy. But somehow she manages to find moments of grace, more often than not through the genial voice of P.G. Wodehouse, the beloved British novelist. Spanning the first half of the twentieth century, Good Night, Mr. Wodehouse celebrates the power of great novels — from Austen to Chekhov — to transform, console, and teach us the value of friendship and love.
We first traveled to Harvester, Minnesota, twenty-five years ago in the bookclub favorite and New York Times best-selling novel, The Cape Ann. This new book, which brings us home to that small town on the prairie along with all of the wonderful characters who live there, is sure to be a classic.
The Cape Ann
Lark Erhardt, the six-year-old narrator of The Cape Ann, and her fiercely independent mother dream of owning their own house; they have their hearts set on the Cape Ann, chosen from a house catalog. But when Lark's father's gambling threatens the down payment her mother has worked so hard to save, Lark's mother takes matters into her own indomitable hands. A disarmingly involving portrait of a family struggling to stay together through the Great Depression, The Cape Ann is an unforgettable story of life from a child's-eye view.
The Empress of One
From Library Journal
In Sullivan's second novel about the small Midwestern town of Harvester, Minnesota, spanning the years 1935 to 1950, Sally's mother is disgracing the family by losing her grip on reality in a case of what would now be diagnosed as depression. This stigma attends Sally's every move in grade school. She tries to lead a normal life with the help of her family and friends, but the fear that her mother's condition is hereditary haunts her. As she enters her teens, Sally's flair for the dramatic emerges?both on and off the stage. The death of her mother, the breakup with her insecure boyfriend, and the suicide of her beloved drama coach drive Sally to the brink of her physical and mental endurance, where she hovers, undecided. This beautifully written and exquisitely readable book transports readers through
time and space. Highly recommended. Joanna M. Burkhardt, Univ. of Rhode Island Coll. of Continuing Education.What A Woman Must Do
Set in the Midwest in 1952, Faith Sullivan’s novel follows the interconnected lives of three women of three generations: Bess, 17, Harriet, 39, and Kate, 59. All have been affected by the death of Bess’s parents in a car accident. As Bess prepares for college, and Harriet for marriage, Great Aunt Kate holds the trio together. In writing knowingly and appreciatively of small-town life, Sullivan, winner of the Milkweed Editions' National Fiction Prize, addresses the universal themes of family, love, and loyalty. “What a Woman Must Do draws the reader in.” — Washington Post Book World
Gardenias
A month after the United States enters World War II, the country is in upheaval — and so is the Erhardt family. Nine-year-old Lark, her mother Arlene, and Aunt Betty are heading for San Diego, far away from Harvester, Minnesota and Arlene’s shiftless husband. In the booming wartime economy, Arlene and Betty are soon at work, leaving Lark alone to explore their new neighborhood, a wartime housing project full of others with similarly uprooted lives. Away from prying eyes and small town expectations, the two women begin to forge new lives and new dreams — dreams that Lark isn’t always comfortable with. This richly detailed novel, told through Lark’s observant eyes, reflects the era’s tumultuous events in the everyday dramas of its memorable, finely nuanced characters.This month you can expect a giveaway, a book review, an author interview and if we are lucky a guest post. Please check out Faith Sullivan's books and her website at www.faithsullivan.com
Happy Reading!
