Our Kind: A Novel in Stories

Author - Kate Walbert ... [Goo?] [Posters]

This Hardcover Book item from Scribner was reviewed on 30-Aug-2008.

Search ISBN:0743245598 offer from Abebooks or used books from Alibris. Our Kind: A Novel in Stories Reference Book. Classifications : General Classics Literature & Fiction Subjects Books Contemporary Literature & Fiction Subjects Books Literary Literature & Fiction Subjects Books General Short Stories Literature & Fiction Subjects B . Click the following link to view the cover of Our Kind: A Novel in Stories.

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1) Hardcover Book Our Kind: A Novel in Stories by Scribner. I was very much looking forward to reading these disparate stories about women of a certain age who were lead down the primrose path to find themselves disillusioned at the end. However, right from the start, I had difficulty really building any level of caring for these women.

Perhaps it was the style; as other reviewers point out, the style is choppy and ill-conceived. Or perhaps it was the stereotypical names -- these women all have names like Canoe or Buffy, I guess to drum home that these are very privileged women. (A few, yes, but ALL of them...?) Or maybe it´s the relentless pitiful situations these women find themselves in, without any mollifying good times.

Whatever the reason, I found myself plodding through the stories, wanting badly to connect but not feeling as if any of these women resembled even a small part of anyone I know. Perhaps the author is creating characters she knows nothing about; she´s far younger than them and sometimes, you need to "live in someone´s shoes." But that´s a cop-out; MANY authors write about characters who are foreign to them. All in all, not recommended. (For a book that uses interconnected stories well, try Mary and O´Neill.¤

2) Hardcover Book Our Kind: A Novel in Stories by Scribner. I found this book unreadable, the writing style is choppy in the extreme, and I felt nothing for the protagonists, of whom there are too many. I always thought books were supposed to enlighten us about people we may not be like or know personally, that we would actually learn something in the process of reading the book. These people are unlikeable and unlikely.
The book is overall too mannered.¤

3) Hardcover Book Our Kind: A Novel in Stories by Scribner. This was a selection for my book club and less than 40% of our members bothered to finish the book. Enough said.

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4) Hardcover Book Our Kind: A Novel in Stories by Scribner. Walbert is a gifted writer. This book evokes the theme of suburban love and loneliness, told in a confident and eloquent voice.¤

5) Hardcover Book Our Kind: A Novel in Stories by Scribner. I first read this book when it was published in hard back, after reading the NY Times review. Then when it was published in paperback and a friend bought it for me, I read it again. This is a novel to hold on to, and to read again and again.¤

6) Hardcover Book Our Kind: A Novel in Stories by Scribner.

From the award-winning author of The Gardens of Kyoto comes this witty and incisive novel about the lives and attitudes of a group of women -- once country-club housewives; today divorced, independent, and breaking the rules.

In Our Kind, Kate Walbert masterfully conveys the dreams and reality of a group of women who came into the quick rush of adulthood, marriage, and child-bearing during the 1950s. Narrating from the heart of ten companions, Walbert subtly depicts all the anger, disappointment, vulnerability, and pride of her characters: "Years ago we were led down the primrose lane, then abandoned somewhere near the carp pond."

Now alone, with their own daughters grown, they are finally free -- and ready to take charge: from staging an intervention for the town deity to protesting the slaughter of the country club´s fairway geese, to dialing former lovers in the dead of night.

Walbert´s writing is quick-witted and wry, just like her characters, but also, in its cumulative effect, moving and sad. Our Kind is a brilliant, thought-provoking novel that opens a window into the world of a generation and class of women caught in a cultural limbo.¤

Page Updated: Robert N. Goolsby, 27-Sep-2008, 07432455989780743245593, 870-960-760-980-W2B-NUB-8

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