Title: Keeping the House
Author: Ellen Baker
Description (from Ellen Baker's website:) When Dolly Magnuson moves to Pine Rapids, Wisconsin in 1950, she discovers all too soon that making marriage work is harder than it looks in the pages of the Ladies’ Home Journal. Dolly tries to adapt to her new life—keeping the house, supporting her husband’s career, fretting about dinner menus. She even gives up her dream of flying an airplane, and instead tries to fit in at the stuffy Ladies Aid quilting circle. Soon, though, her loneliness and restless imagination are seized by the vacant house on the hill, and, as Dolly’s own life and marriage become increasingly difficult, she begins to lose herself in piecing together the shocking story of three generations of Mickelson men and women: Wilma Mickelson, who came to Pine Rapids as a new bride in 1896, and fell in love with a man who was not her husband; her oldest son, Jack, who fought as a Marine in the trenches of the First World War; and Jack’s son, JJ, a troubled veteran of World War II, who returns home to discover Dolly in his grandparents’ house. As the crisis in Dolly’s marriage escalates and she seeks answers from JJ’s stories of his family’s past, KEEPING THE HOUSE moves back and forth in time, exploring themes of wartime heroism and passionate love, of the struggles of men with fatherhood and war, of women with conformity, identity, forbidden dreams and love.
Why I Was Drawn to This Book: I had read the description of Baker's newer book, I Gave My Heart to Know This and thought it sounded interesting. Generally when this happens and it's an author I haven't read before, I check to see if he/she wrote anything previously. I went to Ellen Baker's website and the book's description sounded good and admittedly, I was drawn to Keeping the House by its cover shown there:
Review: Well, this is a CLEAR case of "don't judge a book by its cover."
I thought, "What a cutesy cover" -- I'll love it.
Fannie Flagg's review is on the cover -- can't go wrong.
WRONG.
Awful, awful, awful. Baker should've stopped after 200 pages. The book was 500+ pages and after page 201-ish, I started skimming. Too much detail. Too much back and forth between generations. Too many unrealistic twists and turns happening to one person/family. Dolly, the main character interested me, but the book wasn't really about her, in my opinion. It was about the Mickelson family, whom she was obsessed with.
The Mickelsons were one messed up bunch. Seriously. MAYBE crazy stuff happens to all members of a family (over and over), but just not in my world (or even in my fictional world.) Don't get me wrong, I like reading about families and their issues, but they have to be at least somewhat believable.
The one cool thing about this book? Each chapter started with a quote from "Ladies Home Journal" or a similar magazine from the 1950's giving advice to homemakers. These were interesting. I can't find any specific examples, but basically things like, "put yourself last and your husband first" or "make yourself presentable and cook a good meal." It was very reminiscent of Donna Reed.
Grade: D
Don't bother!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment