|
Unwrap a great read
Our critics offer their gift to you December 13, 2002 from the Rocky Mountain News You've withstood traffic jams, lines at the mall, the shock of watching your bank account shrink to near-nothing levels. And finally, the stockings are hung, the presents are wrapped and the tree is in full splendor. Now isn't it time to give a gift to yourself? For readers, there's nothing like discovering an exciting new author, a fresh voice to follow into the future - if only you didn't have to plow through a pile of lesser stories to find it. This week, we make that task as simple as turning the page. In our ongoing effort to highlight new authors, our critics have spent the year reading debut novels. They've screened more than 100 titles, books we haven't reviewed in the normal course of the year. And they've carefully whittled this amazing group down to their favorites. In this hectic season, when a person can end up feeling frazzled rather than refreshed, we urge you to take advantage of our guide. Then lock the door, put up your feet and unwrap a great read. Even Santa would approve.
Q Road Author’s background: Campbell, who grew up on a small Michigan farm, later studied philosophy, earned a master’s degree in mathematics and a masters in fine arts. She also hitchhiked across the U.S. and Canada, scaled the Swiss Alps on her bicycle and briefly traveled with a circus. Plot in a nutshell: This is a sort of May-December love story between a quiet Michigan farmer and a young half-breed woman raised by a mother on a houseboat. Rachel, who has a gift for gardening, agrees to marry George so she can inherit his "damned land," but a tragic fire and encroaching subdivisions threaten it. Sample of prose: "On October 9, 1991, with no apparent concern for the life, the livelihood, or the desires of mortals, this fire clung to the hay-strewn floor and also climbed into the rafters of the barn and burned and burned. "The blazing fire did not care that the teacher had made love in the barn with a man who was not her husband. The fire did not give a damn who’d been killed in this barn or buried beneath it, so one could not very well expect such a fire to spare an asthmatic child messing around with a cigarette." Author reminds me of: Carolyn Chute, with her offbeat characters. And the author’s larger view of the changing face of rural life is similar to that offered by Jane Smiley and Barbara Kingsolver.
Best reason to read: Campbell’s spare, evocative prose is pure artistry, but her unusual characters and her unique way of linking the continuity of time with the land’s inhabitants prove her a writer to watch. |