Crows Over a Wheatfield

by Paula Sharp

Book Overview

Timely, provocative, and fine-tuned emotionally--written with an insider's knowledge of the legal system--this new novel by the author of "The Woman Who Was Not All There" tells a tautly dramatic,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0786861177
• Release Date: August 1996
• Publisher: Hyperion
• Length: 416 Pages
• Weight: 1.48 lbs.
• Dimensions: 10.0" x 1.5" x 6.5"

Customer Reviews

Moving, funny, beautiful book with amazing characters

This is definitely a five-star book. As an attorney who works in the Ohio courts, I found Crows over a Wheatfield amazingly accurate - we're lucky that someone who knows the courts writes so well, too. The portrait of Mildred Steck's abusive husband Daniel is ingenious - he really does talk and act like such people do. I love the way he contradicts himself without even realizing it, the way he seems completely disassociated from his own nastiness. In real life, I think men like him would probably be more dangerous, although I can see why Sharp would have wanted to rein him in a little, to draw a more subtle portrait. My favorite character in this book is Daniel's wife, Mildred. I like her because she defies all stereotypes of battered women - she's just an ordinary person who had the misfortune of marrying someone who was not so ordinary. Mildred is so full of life and humor - the best thing about this book is the way Sharp, astonishingly, keeps you laughing even in the worst of times. The novel's fourth book, in which Mildred starts an underground railroad for battered women, was the best of the four books of the novel. The detailing of how the railroad was set up was so ingenious, and its architects and philosophy so wry and amusing. Quite an indictment of the legal system. Anyone who ever thinks they might end up in a matrimonial court case should read this book.

Brilliant, Gripping Masterpiece

This the best book I've read in many years. It tackles a difficult subject -- how domestic violence is mishandled by our courts in custody cases -- but somehow Sharp takes on this topic in such a way that you never feel overwhelmed by it. Her characters are riveting. She has an uncanny ability to step into the skin of her narrators and to deliver a perfectly convincing story from their points of view -- and you never question their perspective as long as they've got hold of you. Whether or not you agree with the views of this novel's narrator, you certainly come to understand them in a detailed, intelligent way. You are moved. This must be very hard for authors to pull off, because when you see the real thing in a book liike this, you realize how rare it is.This is a big book -- it spans 30 years in a family's life, and you get to know and care about people who surprise you -- Matt Ratleer, the schizophrenic brother of the narrator Melanie, must be the first really psychotic person I've encountered in a novel, who is presented with such breathtaking realism and compassion and without condescension. You don't just get to like him -- you love him. Melanie's friend Mildred -- who starts an underground railroad for battered women fleeing unjust and dangerous custody rulings -- is so unique, so zany and passionate and brilliant that you wish she was your friend. And the villains! No one writes villains like Paula Sharp! This book has one of the best villains I've seen in years -- Mildred's increasingly violent husband Daniel. What makes him so scary is he's so real. He's surely a sociopath, but I've never seen a sociopath laid out so carefully and convincingly, without the gore and fanfare of Hollywood, but intelligently, realistically. Every action he takes is both surprising and completely credible.This book is a masterpiece. Read it and tell everyone you know about it.

Melancholy made beautiful

"Crows Over a Wheatfield" fascinated and gripped me, with its beautiful imagery and up-lifting story.

a wonderful writer

I would read anything written by this author, for her masterful art of storytelling and for her brilliant writing. I couldn't put it down.

Law and cynicism

Paula Sharp's 1996 novel Crows Over a Wheatfield tells the story of Melanie Ratleer, daughter of an extremely successful -- but abusive -- trial lawyer father, who rises in her profession to become first a big-firm lawyer then a U.S. District Judge nominee. Throughout her life, both in her own household and later through her practice, she encounters situations where unfair or bigoted judges control case outcome, where money conquers justice, and where the law finally just wears litigants down. In one particularly telling passage, a senior, very compasionate, lawyer explains why a case should be tried before a jury, rather than a judge alone: "A bench trial! That would be worse. [T]he face that leans over the bench, swaddled in black rayon, is not Solomon's It's a lawyer's. A lawyer dressed up in a black costume. And what kind of judge would we get? How much will he know about people? Is he stupid? Prejudiced? Failure of imagination is the heart of the law." The last sentence -- about failure of the imagination being the law's lifeblood -- really gives one pause. In many respects, I cannot disagree, at least as the system often works. In the end, Melanie first becomes aware of then involved in a widespread plan of civil disobedience, a group of persons who, having concluded that the courts cannot protect themselves or their children from violent abuse, must take the law in their own hands. Sharp writes with great passion and vision, and draws a cast of believable and sympathetic characters. I suspect any reader will finish the book either agreeing with her point of view (I did) or throwing the novel aside in disgust. I recommend this novel very highly.