Synopses & Reviews
Review
Helget wrings intensity from the seemingly mundanea family farm, the kitchen, a sleepy Midwestern townto recreate a past that lives on somewhere between a dream and a nightmare. In The Summer of Ordinary Ways, every detail is authentic and resonant, every moment feels lived. Helgets debut is nothing short of remarkable.” Rosellen Brown, author of Tender Mercies
Review
Marvelous, vibrant, and full of gritty energy, carrying the reader on a breathless ride across hills and valleys of pain, humor, and redemption.” Faith Sullivan, author of The Cape Ann
Review
Written with blistering beauty, this fierce memoir is an elegy for broken spiritshuman and animaland a prayer for those able to face their past. ” Bart Schneider, author of Beautiful Inez
Review
"[Helget] absorbs the reader with a simple clarity that reminds us how much our own memories may be clouded by sentiment."Minneapolis Star Tribune
Synopsis
Helget breaks open the tough shell of family life to reveal a girlhood both tragic and lovely, with all its hidden violence, all its secret beauty. Carolyn Parkhurst, author of The Dogs of BabelPracticing baseball with Dad, then watching him go after a cow with a pitchfork in a fit of rage. Playing chicken on the county road with semi trucks full of hogs. Flirting with the milkman. Chasing with your sisters after Wreck and Bump, mangy mutts who prowl farmsteads killing chickens and drinking fuel oil. Dandelion wine. The ghost of a girl buried alive over a century ago. These unforgettable, sometimes hilarious images spill from a fierce and wondrous childhood into the pages of The Summer of Ordinary Ways."
Synopsis
Helget breaks open the tough shell of family life to reveal a girlhood both tragic and lovely, with all its hidden violence, all its secret beauty.”Carolyn Parkhurst, author of The Dogs of Babel Practicing baseball with Dad, then watching him go after a cow with a pitchfork in a fit of rage. Playing chicken on the county road with semi trucks full of hogs. Flirting with the milkman. Chasing with your sisters after Wreck and Bump, mangy mutts who prowl farmsteads killing chickens and drinking fuel oil. Dandelion wine. The ghost of a girl buried alive over a century ago. These unforgettable, sometimes hilarious images spill from a fierce and wondrous childhood into the pages of The Summer of Ordinary Ways.
About the Author
Nicole Lea Helget studies and teaches at Minnesota State UniversityMankato. She is the winner of the 2004 Speakeasy Prize for Prose. This is her first book.