Rowing in Eden

By Barbara Rogan

Book Overview

ROWING IN EDENSam is not the only tormented soul in the tiny upstate village of Old Wickham. There's also Peter Quinn, a brilliant, troubled fourteen-year-old with quick fists, no past, and a truckload of attitude. Although a judge found him innocent, Peter knows better. Some things, he figures, "it don't matter why you did 'em, only that you did 'em."
On its surface, Old Wickham, New York, is a Norman Rockwell montage of red-cheeked youngsters skating on ponds, dogs frolicking in the snow, and villagers huddled around wood-burning stoves. Yet someone in this idyllic community has been setting fires. Suspicions divide the village along the usual fault lines. Scapegoats are sought, outsiders shunned. The back room of the country store gives rise to a Greek chorus of collective rage. In this crucible of distrust, unlooked for alliances are forged, old alliances are tested, and no one emerges unchanged.
Alice Hoffman hails Barbara Rogan as a "masterful story teller." The New York Times praises her as a passionate writer whose prose is "as vivid as lightning bolts." Now, with Rowing in Eden, a morally complex story about friendship, love, marriage, and family -- in other words, all the things that matter most -- Barbara Rogan not only fulfills but generously exceeds the expectations of fans and reviewers alike.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1439135754
• ISBN13: 9781439135754
• Release Date: September 2008
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 0.81 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Moving Tale

Barbara Rogan paints an incisive portrait of life in small-town America, definitely not Norman Rockwell. Here are murderers, bigots, small-minded busybodies. Jane Goncalves and her foster children left the big city to escape these things, but find themselves embroiled in controversy and strife. Sam Rockwell exists in a shadowy purgatory of grief after losing his beloved wife to cancer. Sam and Jane come together in the face of adversity and form a deep bond, showing that the best families aren't necessarily related by blood.

A moving story of unlikely bonds formed by tragic events.

Rowing in Eden is an insightful look at small town americana in the 1990's and of the darkness that lurks beneath the the post card exterior of the seemingly ideal town of Old Wickham. While parts of the story are predictable and the villains are, at times, somewhat one dimensional, what separates this story from others of its type are Rogan's rich drawings of the three main characters and the separate tragedies that unite them. Rowing in Eden is solemn, haunting, and yet a strangely uplifting story about love and hate, death and living, fear of the unknown, and bonds that form in adversity.Rowing in Eden is not a triumph of the human spirit spirit, but rather a testament to its perseverance. I strongly recommend this book to fans of slice-of-life fiction.