Garner

by Kirstin Allio

Book Overview

"An elegant, luminous, moving work of lyric prose. Every page shimmers."--Carole Maso "Fiercely imagined, alive with incandescent imagery, Kirstin Allio's Garner is a memorable debut."--John Burnham... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1566891752
• ISBN13: 9781566891752
• Release Date: September 2005
• Publisher: Coffee House Press
• Length: 232 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.3" x 7.8"

Customer Reviews

Stark Beauty

I've spent time in rural New Hampshire, but know the area in a different way after reading this marvelous work. I found myself re-reading sentences, paragraphs, and entire sections, just to appreciate the beauty of the language. This is a very powerful and moving novel, and I for days I felt the sense of life in this small New England town. The characters, while drawn with a mimimal prose, are unforgettable, and the scenes of stark rural New Hampshire are haunting. I can't wait to re-read the entire book, and eagerly await future novels from this writer.

Evocative, lyrical and challenging

This is the type of novel that must not be approached as a casual, light read for it is neither. The author's prose is sparse and often dream-like which does make this novel a demanding read. That said, readers who are looking for an unconventional novel with truly beautiful prose will find their match with Garner.

This book is a gem.

This book is richly detailed and well stuctured. The writer gets you using all your senses. Ms. Allio's first effort brought Nabokov to my mind. Her lean, precise prose are a real treat. It's nice seeing an American writer weaving nature into a story. Garner is a demanding read, but well, well worth the effort.

The Postman as Gatekeeper to a Tragedy

In the opening pages of Kirstin Allio's debut novel, young Frances Giddens is found by the town's postman drowned in Blood Brook. It is 1925, and the town of Garner, New Hampshire is struggling financially. The postman, Willard Heald, is obviously troubled by Frances's death even as he labors over his handwritten history of the town. His wife watches him with suspicion, for she suspects him of having harbored a crush on the spirited teenager. The summer boarders staying at the Giddens family's house remain silent, as do those who lift her body out of the stream. No one dares utter the questions lurking in the reader's mind: Did Frances kill herself or was she murdered? And why? The circumstances surrounding Frances's death constitute the bulk of Allio's subtly moving novel. Told in fragments that often read like prose poems, the narrative is not straightforward and instead skirts the truth like a wary coyote. As Frances writes in her diary, "secrets . . . are the shadows of the plain truth between us." Although Frances's life and death form the center of the novel, it is Heald who is its gatekeeper. All outside communication must pass through Heald, who takes it upon himself to decide whether someone should receive or post a specific letter. He hides truth from the town - and the reader - in a way no one else can. The residents are ignorant of his power, and they treat him almost as an outsider, someone quiet who sits on the edge of their gatherings, a solitary man. Heald's stealth ends up being both his strength and his undoing. Allio's prose can make for demanding reading since no word or image is wasted, and she leaves the reader to piece together the story from the poetic details she provides. The starkness of 1925 New Hampshire, even during its most bountiful season, preys upon the characters. Some passages are cryptic as Allio splices moments and quotes from different times to punctuate another scene, but whether the author is describing a woodland or a person or even a roundabout truth, she writes with gorgeous precision. Readers will be well rewarded by sticking with her, to see where the meandering journey through the roads and paths of Garner will take them. Readers of unconventional literary fiction will find much to admire in this unsettling debut novel. Highly recommended for serious readers.