|
 
$4.95
Used Hardcover
Ships in 1 to 3 days
More copies of this ISBNThis title in other editionseBook editionsBlues Lessons: A Novelby Robert Hellenga
Synopses & ReviewsPublisher Comments:Growing up on his family's orchards in Appleton, Michigan, in the 1950s, Martin Dijksterhuis finds everything he needs in his extended family and in the land itself — in the reassuring routines of growing and harvesting, spraying and pruning. Although his mother wants him to get out of Appleton, which she finds impossibly provincial, and attend a great university — the University of Chicago, her alma mater — he has no desire to leave. In the autumn of his junior year of high school, however, in the camp of the migrant workers who come north every year to pick the Dijksterhuis peaches and apples, Martin discovers his vocation, the country blues — unsettling melodies that cry out from a place in the soul he never knew existed. He also falls in love with Corinna Williams, the strong-willed daughter of the black foreman who runs the Dijksterhuis orchards. His blues vocation and his love for Corinna are the two stories of his life. His struggle to combine them into a single story takes him a long way from home and from the life he had always envisioned for himself, and then it brings him back again in a way he could never have imagined. In this beautifully rendered novel, Robert Hellenga, author of "The Sixteen Pleasures" and "The Fall of a Sparrow, " explores the fragility of happiness, the difficulties of following one's calling in life, and the sorrows and satisfactions of being a parent. Review:"An amiable if long-winded coming-of-ager set amid the quiet turmoil of 1960s rural Michigan." Kirkus Reviews Review:"Hellenga has a gift for nicely pointed satire and a rich, almost lavish sense of place." David Willis McCullough, The New York Times Book Review Review:"Irresistible....A compendium of delights, overflowing with insight and passion. The funny parts are absurdly hilarious, the painful ones moving and perceptive." Rebecca Radner, San Francisco Chronicle Book Review Review:"Here's the new Robert Hellenga novel, as richly detailed and absorbing as The Sixteen Pleasures. You know what you need to do: Boil the tea water, get into bed, tell your dear family to go away for a few days, and begin the journey." Jane Hamilton, author of The Book of Ruth Review:"Robert Hellenga's great gift to the world of letters is his ability to breathe sensual life into a complex and rewarding cross section of all worlds — ancient, contemporary, sacred, bodily, silly, sublime." Antonya Nelson,
author of Nobody's Girl About the AuthorRobert Hellenga is the author of The Sixteen Pleasures and The Fall of a Sparrow. He is a professor of English at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois. What Our Readers Are SayingBe the first to add a comment for a chance to win!Product Details
Other books you might like
Related SubjectsFiction and Poetry » Literature » A to Z
|
|||||||||
|
|
||||||||||
|
Follow us on...
|
||||||||||
Don't Miss
