I read this book for a second time after Richard Russo's "Empire Falls" brought it to mind. Although it lacks the epic sweep of Russo's novel, "Whisper My Names" shares a similar setting (small town New England), eccentric and often comical characters, and a narrative informed by American realist traditions.

Hebert perfectly conveys the small-town rivalries, petty grievances, and endearing foibles that afflict the fictional town of Darby, New Hampshire, where two of his previous novels were set. The source of the town's current problems is a proposed shopping mall that (to some) promises new jobs and revenue and (to others) threatens the area's rustic way of life. The novel's characters are motivated by greed, principles, politics, and pretensions--and some of them just don't care. All in all, Darby is a microcosm of American life.

At the center of it all is Chance, a journalist covering the story while seeking the identity of his real father and pursuing Soapy, a young girl whose parentage is equally unclear. But the most memorable character is perhaps Ike Jordan, a churlish fraud and petty criminal from the wrong side of the tracks who has pretensions of becoming one of the town's leaders.

It's a shame this book is out of print. I can only hope that the University Press of New England, which has reprinted Hebert's first two Darby novels, will see its way to adding this book to its list.

This is not the first account i've read about someone leaving busy city life to live in a bucolic farm. The thing that really sets this book apart is that Kumin skips the sappy parts and goes straight to the realities of harsh life in the countryside. It is hard to tend horses! However, you can tell how much she enjoys her life there. Thank you for saving us the fluff. Her short stories (the second half of the book) are all fantastic.

The title of Mary Emma Allen's little reference, "Writing In Maine, New Hamshire & Vermont" indicates a very narrow focus. It would be a mistake to assume that this book is not useful for any freelance writer or writer living outside these states.

Although it is true that many entries are useful and/or available only for residents of this tri-state area, the percentage of these restricted entries is not large.

For those of us who live in the other 47 states there is plenty of information that we can use. The really amazing thing is that much of this information is not found in periodicals that most of us use. like Writers' Markets.

This little volume makes an excellent addendum to any book an author might presently be using as a resource. There are lists of bookstores and contests and publishers and grants and markets, and colleges and...you get the idea. I'd be willing to bet that most of these sources are not in the average writer's Rolodex.

Sooo...what are you waiting for?

Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of "This is the Place"

I first read The Cheerleader as a teenager and it was one of my all-time favorite books, one to be cherished. I wanted the story to go on and on so I was very happy when I found out 7 years after its publication about Snowy, the sequel. I hunted down a copy and read it in one night. After The Cheerleader, I found Snowy to be a let-down. The characters as adults weren't endearing. I couldn't relate to them at all. The life path that Snowy took seemed to totally conflict with the forces that shaped her teen-age years. Snowy develops an illness that seems totally out of character for her. It seemed to pop up out of nowhere. I did like the fact that the author brought some closure to Tom's and Snowy's relationship. I just wish it had happened in a different way.

This book was wonderful. I read it in a single evening during my pregnancy. Snowy is a continuation of the book "The Cheerleader". I first read The Cheerleader when I was a teenager (38 now). I always wondered what had happened to Snowy and her friends. Imagine my pleasure when I located a copy of Snowy! The Author immediately took me back into the lives of Snowy, Tom, Puddles, Bev and the rest of the gang.....how their lives parted, changed and blended into adults and occasionally got back together again. The book starts right after High School and progresses with Snowy's life for 30 years. I felt satisfied after reading it knowing what had happened to everyone. Thank you Ruth Doan MacDougall.

Like many others here, I adored THE CHEERLEADER. So when I saw SNOWY sitting on the library shelf, I almost went into shock...grabbed it, raced home, and devoured it in a few hours. And yes, my initial feeling was disappointment, because (1) it wasn't THE CHEERLEADER II, (2) it didn't provide the life-changing experience I was breathlessly expecting, and (3) it's a *very* different book. Then my sense of perspective kicked in. I don't love any book as much as I love THE CHEERLEADER, so why would I expect to love this one as much? And, while I love all of Ruth Doan MacDougall's books, none of them rocked my world like THE CHEERLEADER did, nor did I expect them to. I realized that I was holding SNOWY to an awfully high standard.

All that being said, having read it numerous times now, I truly love SNOWY. Sure, it might have been fun if Snowy married Tom, Bev married Roger, and Puddles married Gene, and they all lived next door to one another in Gunthwaite, having coffee klatsches and Tupperware parties (which was my mom's '60's experience, to address a comment from another reader)--but would we have believed it? While THE CHEERLEADER is as much a portrait of the '50s as it is the story of a girl, SNOWY is very much one woman's tale--and I love that woman so much, I would cheerfully hang around if she simply wanted to read her shopping list to me. I too regretted the leaps forward in time, simply because I wanted to share every minute with Snowy--but, through flashbacks and other devices, Ms. MacDougall fleshes out those "missing" years so that we have the complete picture (well, up to a point--I'm hoping for a third book!).

I'm surprised--and sometimes shocked--by what happened to the Gunthwaite High graduates, just as I'm surprised and frequently shocked by my own classmates. It isn't what I imagined nor what I would've picked for them, these characters so real and so dear to me. But it's life.

It's fascinating to see these familiar characters through the eyes of an adult (meaning Snowy, but also, I guess, me, since I first read THE CHEERLEADER when quite young, to my mother's horror)--particularly Julia. At one point Snowy muses something like, "The word for Julia these days would probably be mentor--which didn't exactly sum things up." I just love this. I took the presence of Julia very much for granted in the first book, just as most teens take their friends' parents for granted--and it's simply astonishing for me to realize now what a powerful presence Julia was in Snowy's life, how much it must have meant to have an adult actually *see* her--something her own parents were unable to do. I found the vignettes involving Julia to be particularly moving.

It's not THE CHEERLEADER. Nothing is. But once you get past that, you will find a wonderful book, well worth savoring.

Stephen Dobyns has once again proved his versatility with his new book, "Boy in the Water". Fans of his Saratoga series are familiar with his wonderful sense of humor, great characters, and spectacular mishaps, all surrounded by a great deal of local color. This novel, like his "Church of the Dead Girls", is serious, haunting, and mysterious, set in winter in New Hampshire, with predictable villains and a great deal of foreshadowing. This book reminds me a bit of a PD James novel,(the snowy mountains instead of the foggy moors) not quite as thick, and certainly with a New England twist. I enjoyed every minute of it, found the characters likeable, believable, and interesting. I loved the subtle changes in the boarding school which Jim Hawthorne was able to implement during his troubled first semester there, as evidenced by the scenes with the students; Dobyns has an excellent eye and understanding for the behavior patterns of abused kids. This was a great read, and highly recommended. My only criticism is that the foreshadowing is a bit heavy, the "bad guys" are pretty obvious even though our hero seems to be oblivious, and the ending is a bit strange - we see the aftermath of the climax of the novel through the eyes of a very minor and peripheral character and there is no alternative wrap up. An interesting literary device, but I felt a little cheated. Maybe foreshadowing of a sequel, Mr. Dobyns?

This is the first book by Stephen Dobyns I have read. I found it truly remarkable and found it hard to put down. Boy In the Water is a taut psychological thriller that kept me wanting to read just one more chapter every time I needed to put it aside. Set at a formerly tony elite prep school in New Hampshire, the school has become a kind of expensive way station for affluent kids who have been in trouble, abused, emotionally abandoned and just about every other kind of trauma that many adolescents have experienced by the time they reach their teens. A nationally prominent psychologist is brought in as the Headmaster after the school had almost hit rock bottom. He faces a run down institution with almost no financial resources to attend to it1s care. The faculty are a complete cast of characters who have designed their lives on campus around their own interests and needs and with little regard for their charges. Psychologist cum Headmaster, Jim Hawthorn is himself recovering from a profound tragedy in his own life and sets about pouring every ounce of attention into bringing about change at the school. His first priority is the kids. He soon find that this view is much at odds with the faculty'd way of operating and the games begin. Layer upon layer of passive-aggressiveness and actual criminal acts have been occurring at the school over the years. This becomes compounded by various new elements of pure evil plotting to be certain Hawthorne does not manage to keep the school open. Throughout the story, as a reader, I kept rooting for the kids and the new headmaster. I was afraid he was going to completely lose it several times, yet he perseveres at almost insurmountable odds. Though the book concludes by allowing the Headmaster to peel back layer upon layer of the problems at hand, we can only sense that at the end, there is much promise for the school and that Hawthorne will indeed make this institution into a first class school that indeed meets the needs of its students. A compelling read, well written and simply completely engaging. I look forward to reading Dobyns other thrillers and can't wait for more!

Dobyns continues to enchant with his wonderfully descriptive scenery. Likewise, Dobyns's character descriptions are terrific, giving his audience a sense that these characters are involved in every part of our own daily lives. As Dobyns delves into the psychology of grief and guilt felt by those who have lost loved ones he gives the audience for a moment insight into the human heart and soul. The fear felt through the climatic ending to the book is splendid. This book keeps you hanging on every word and urges you to continue reading. Despite, being a little over 400 pages the book seemed like it was finished before it started.

I've read all of Anita Shreve's books. This one wasn't as good as A Pilot's Wife or The Weight of Water.

Her latest book tells the story of the stock market crash in 1929. We see the struggle of the mill workers and the impact of such a horrendous economic blow to all of the various social classes. Honora Beecher is at the centre of the story though the novel is told from 5 different perspectives.

Shreve is an outstanding writer in that she uses wonderful, descriptive language and she can explore the human condition and the range of emotions like few other authors. I enjoyed this part of the book, but the story was a little too slow. I felt that some of the characters just didn't come to life like they could have...Vivian, the jaded socialite especially.

Overall, this was a good book, just not her best.

Anita Shreve's latest book, "Sea Glass," is a quiet novel that deals with the universal themes of life, love, loss, hope, beauty, tragedy and death.

"Sea Glass" begins in 1929, when Sexton Beecher, a typewriter salesman, marries bank clerk, Honora. They decide to make their home in a rather dalipidated, but still romantic, New England beach house. Honora is a fulltime wife and homemaker and besides the usual things all wives and homemakers do, Honora loves to take long walks on the beach and collect bits of colored glass, worn smooth as silk by the waves of the sea. Eventually, Honora meets and becomes friends with, Vivian, a wealthy woman who happens to live nearby. The world seems, at least to Honora, to be an almost perfect place.

When things are too good, they usually don't last and Honora learns this lesson the hard way. When the Depression causes Sexton to lose his job, his car and even jeopardizes the house, Honora is, of course, frightened. Sexton does find work at the local textile mill, but the job isn't a good one and a strike soon jeopardizes that as well.

Sexton and Honora's home become the center for the strike organizers and this event will, eventually, turn Honora's world upside down. When she begins to cook meals for everyone who meets at the house she meets handsome, Quillen McDermott and his twelve year old friend, Francis. Although times are very difficult, Honora suddenly finds that she is enjoying herself. Both the constant company and the presence of Francis, to whom she becomes a surrogate mother, are comforting. But, where McDermott is concerned, Honora may just be finding things a little too comforting and complications arise. These complications and how they are solved make up the bulk of the book.

This is a book that is told from the point of view of many of the characters involved. In almost every case this works, and it works well. The exceptions are Vivian and Francis. In the early sections of the book, Vivian played such a prominent part that we come to believe she will be an integral part of the coming storyline as well. Instead, she seems to fade a little more with each passing scene.

Francis is also problematic. His chapters are written in long sentences that let us know he is smart, but lacks the education he should have at his age. This wouldn't be bad in and of itself. The problem arises because the rest of the novel is so quiet and so poetic; Francis' chapters seem a little abrupt, as if they're jarring us out of a lovely reverie that we just don't want to leave.

Shreve is good, at least in this book, at creating convincing, believable characters and then making them come to life. The tension and excitement that exists between Honora and McDermott is especially memorable.

Although the description is good, the symbolism of the sea glass, however, is a bit heavy-handed, especially near the end.

This is a quiet book, with no great surprises and no great suspense. It doesn't delve too deeply into the minds and hearts of the characters involved, but then, we don't always want something that's earthshaking. I think most women will find more than enough to relate to in this book and Anita Shreve fans will probably love it.

Anita Shreve's latest book, "Sea Glass," is a quiet novel that deals with the universal themes of life, love, loss, hope, beauty, tragedy and death.

"Sea Glass" begins in 1929, when Sexton Beecher, a typewriter salesman, marries bank clerk, Honora. They decide to make their home in a rather dalipidated, but still romantic, New England beach house. Honora is a fulltime wife and homemaker and besides the usual things all wives and homemakers do, Honora loves to take long walks on the beach and collect bits of colored glass worn smooth as silk by the waves of the sea. Eventually, Honora meets and becomes friends with Vivian, a wealthy woman who happens to live nearby. The world seems, at least to Honora, to be an almost perfect place.

When things are too good, they usually don't last and Honora learns this lesson the hard way. The Great Depression causes problems for Sexton and Honora, but it brings Honora unexpected pleasures as well, in the form of handsome Quillen McDermott and his twelve year old friend, Francis.

This is a book that is told from the point of view of many of the characters involved. In almost every case this works, and it works well. The exceptions are Vivian and Francis. In the early sections of the book, Vivian plays such a prominent part that we come to believe she will be an integral part of the coming storyline as well. Instead, she seems to fade a little more with each passing scene.

Francis is also problematic. His chapters are written in long sentences that let us know he is smart, but lacks the education he should have at his age. This wouldn't be bad in and of itself. The problem arises because the rest of the novel is so quiet and so poetic; Francis' chapters seem a little abrupt, as if they're jarring us out of a lovely reverie that we just don't want to leave.

Shreve is good, at least in this book, at creating convincing, believable characters and then making them come to life. The tension and excitement that exists between Honora and McDermott is especially memorable.

Although the description is good, the symbolism of the sea glass, however, is a bit heavy-handed, especially near the end.

This is a quiet book, with no great surprises and no great suspense. It doesn't delve too deeply into the minds and hearts of the characters involved, but then, we don't always want something that's earthshaking. I think most women will find more than enough to relate to in this book and Anita Shreve fans will probably love it.

I read " A Separate Peace" as a required reading book over the summer. I wasn't particularly thrilled about summer reading and this didn't sound like it would be the most exciting book ever, but I was pleasantly surprised to find it pretty interesting, with a much deeper meaning then casually met the eye at a glance. This story took place in New England at Devon ( a private high school for boys) during World War II, and involved mainly two boys, Gene and Phineas, who were best friends. It tells of how Gene, who represents the experienced grown up, is overcome by jealousy and anger towards his friend. The jealousy that he holds within himself eats away and eventually leads him to push his friend from a tree and permanently injure him in a way that will eventually lead to his death. As Phineas is representative of the innocence we have as a child, this is very symbolic; Gene, the symbol of experience, "destroying" Phineas, the symbol of innocence.( growing up, losing our innocence) The tree is also symbolic , it is like the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (The Garden of Eden). In the story it is Phineas's idea to climb the tree that has thus far been used for military training as a fun new thrill. When he decides to climb it and jump and convinces Gene to do the same, it is symbolic of taking the forbidden fruit that will lead to death and pain in the end. This is especially true for Gene who, when he "destroys" Phineas he is really destroying the innocent half of himself. He had forebodings at first when Phineas wanted him to climb the tree, but he ended up brushing them aside and in a sense, with that decision , it was the beginning of the end. I think this was a good book. It was sad in some ways but it was a meaningful and interesting story.

A Separate Peace by John Knowles is based during World War II in New england. If you can't interperate literature, this book may not be for you. If you are good at reading between the lines there is abetter chance of you enjoying this book. It is about two teenagers, Gene and Finny, who are good friends. However, an extreme jealousy between the two holds back their friendship. Literal level readers may be bored by the lack of action, there is not an overwhelming amount of activity in the 196 page novel. You will find a plethora of themes and connections to life and human nature in this novel. Because of its war setting, there is an omnipresent war theme. Nature plays a large part as well as Biblical meaning and loss of innocence. A Separate Peace is full of universal refererances. The literature is supposed to teach all of the human race more about both ourselves and others. Characterization is done particularly well in the book. War has a double meaning as Gene takes on the role of human nature and the basic feelings and instincts of all people. Phineas is the "perfect" world that everyone would like to live in. there appears to be a character to cover the entire diverse world. Imagery may be another reason to read A Separate Peace. You will like the personification, war imagery, and the theme of nature that is brought out in the book. Overall, John Knowles has put together a nice example of very relevant literature in A Separate Peace. The only drawbacks would be in the sometimes difficult messages and occasionally low suspense parts in the novel. It also has a slightly slow beginning. In general, I would recommend reading this novel to readers of all age groups.

I try not to overuse the word "classic" but "A Separate Peace" surely is and will remain so. The basic plot structure is fairly simple and the characters, while well drawn, are not extremely elaborate outside of Gene (the main character/first person narrator) and his best friend Finny. What gives this novel its power is its imagery, structure and symbolism--precisely the elements that so many prior Amazon reviewers have disliked in the book. Methinks the English teachers aren't getting through to the students, or the students are being a bit obtuse on this one!

Knowles describes an elm tree as the most "Republican" of trees and the book is full of little gems like that. When you read this book for the first time, pay attention to the water imagery, including rain, ice and snow, and how they cleanse, liberate, and tie plot elements together. Pay attention to the interplay of purity and pollution, including the purity of the upper river and the pollution of the lower river, which serves as a metaphor for innocence and corruption. If you really want to get academic, circle the word "marble" every time it occurs.

At the same time, we have World War II going on as both an allegory of Gene's tumultuous adolescence and--this is important--an almost musical counterpoint to the emotional interplay between Gene and Finny. Very well done. Some critics have turned themselves inside out to find "homosexual" or "homoerotic" elements in the book. I disagree. Before one can have a heterosexual or homosexual identity one must have an identity and Gene is struggling to keep his identity throughout the whole book.

All in all, and for all its subtlety, "A Separate Peace" is a powerful and moving book. I hope the next generation of students comes to enjoy and appreciate this masterpiece just as the last several have.

Black Ice is a badly written memoir. Though I am an avid reader, I found myself struggling to get through this work. Not only does it lack insight into her situation, Cary consistently practiced poor word choice in her writing, leaving the reader wondering what her intention was. I also question Cary's editors at Vintage Books--why did they allow her to leave in page after page of lackluster prose describing the minutia of her life? (i.e., pp.60-61 in which Cary describes dropping her soap) I am shocked that reviewer Arnold Rampersad and the Washington Post Book World placed Cary in the same league as Maya Angelou and Richard Wright. Having recently read Ron Suskind's Hope in the Unseen which was a fabulous nonfiction book about a young African American's struggle to fit into life at Brown University, I was disappointed that this coming-of-age offered such little insight into Cary's inner world.

I too had to read this book for school. Once, in the summer going into my freshman year, and again during my junior year. On both occassions, I found that this was a delightful book. The word choices are quite appropriate, and if the words are too big for your vocabulary, then read with a dictionary. I thought that this was a poignant memoir about the early days of integration. As a reader--amazingly, as a white reader--I was very empathtic to the challenges that Ms. Cary overcame. If after all you came away with after reading this book is that it was boring and inconsequential, read it again. Reading for school may not be on the top of my list for fun things to do, but if you forget you're doing homework and yourself to enter the atmosphere of the book, then there is no way you cannot enjoy it. Black Ice is a very powerful and moving book. In recounting her own adolsence, Cary helps people in their teen years make sense of all that is happening to them. She also allows others who have left those years, to remember their own adolescence. There is much to be gained from reading this book, and nothing to lose. I guess if you are a thoughtless person, who does not want to know the history of this country, then this book is not for you. But if you have a compassionate bone in your body, you will learn and grow from this amazing book.

I've read Black Ice atleast 7 times in the past 2 years because with each reading I continue to understand how my experiences at a predominantly white high school have shaped the person I have become. I can not remember the exact phrasing, but there is one passage in Black Ice that sums up how I feel about my high school experience. It goes something like this: If I had left St. Paul's School the same person who went there, there would have been no use in going. In other words, accept that you will be changed when you live through the alienation and self-inflicted loneliness of integrating schools in the Post-Jim Crow, Post Civil Rights Movement era. I wish that I would have read this book while I was still in high school. I would be able to better articulate to my friends and family what I was experiencing.

I've been wondering if the title has anything to do with the lake that Lorene visited in the story when she took the time to think about her life one night. Or maybe it is a visual reference to her heart, dark and cold because she, in her own words, had not loved enough during her teen-age years. Perhaps, it is a reference to the black ice on the roads that you have to watch out for in the winter...

I enjoyed Salem Falls, perhaps it wasn't as good as Keeping Faith or The Plain Truth, but it was an interesting read in it's own right.
The ending was predictable & the graphic details of Addie & Jack's sexual acts was a bit gratuitious but overall it was a decent book.
If you are a first time reader of Jodi Picoult, I would recommend you read her previous novels first, but if not Salem Falls still has the easy going writing style & interesting plots with a hint of courtroom drama.
It's worth a look.

This is the first of Jodi Picoult's novels that I've read, and I will definitely pick up her others at some point. Picoult is a master story-teller, and in this I give her top marks. She knows how to create characters that come alive and crawl under your skin, to the point where, if I had to put the book down for any length of time, they would stay with me in my mind and I would be vividly picturing what might happen next.

As a few other readers have commented though, the ending - in terms of who "wins" at least - is a bit predictable. However, there were always little niggling details that I kept turning over in my mind: "But what about...?" Even if you do have some sense of how things will turn out, there's always enough to make you want to keep reading. In fact, when I still had 180 pages to go, I simply lay in bed all day until I finished it (lucky I'm on summer holidays).

I'm not convinced that Jodi Picoult could ever win the Booker Prize with this novel, but it's still a great read. If you haven't read any of her other books, this is as good a place as any to start.

I swear, Jodi Picoult is a magic story weaver! I am so impressed with this novel and the fact that it completely surpassed my expectations, especially after reading the stellar Plain Truth. Salem Falls is so juicy and exciting, an intoxicating cocktail of everything I love in a suspensful, page-turning drama. And even though I had a strong hunch about the book's ending, it was no less exhilarating to watch it unfold.

Salem Falls tells the story of Jack St. Bride, a former teacher who, according to him, was wrongly accused of sexual assault against one of his students. After doing his time in jail, Jack heads out to start a new life and stumbles into the peaceful, sleepy town of Salem Falls. But it doesn't take long before his past catches up with him, and Jack finds himself fighting another battle for his life. And at its core is a quartet of girls, best friends who are part of a witches coven -- and one girl in particular who has the power to destroy Jack St. Bride.

A perfect blend of magick, power, desire and betrayal, with an explosive courtroom drama of an ending, Salem Falls will have any reader glued to their seats, feverishly turning pages. I loved this book and look forward to reading the rest of Jodi Picoult's novels.

The start of this book about Stefan Blau and his wives is very intriguing -- I would have liked the book to be all about them. The characters of his children were boring and his grandchildren even more so. There were just too many characters over such a long period of time that I stopped caring about any of them -- especially the house, which was much too central for my tastes. I was actually rooting for its collapse by the time Emma was around (my least favorite character). The beautiful style of Heigi's prose is about the only thing that kept me going to the end. A big disappointment since "Stones from the River" is one of my all time favorites -- one I recommend to all my friends. I would never recommend this one to any of them. I gave it three stars because it was not terrible, and like stated above, her prose is wonderful to read. I just had really high hopes for it after "Stones" -- compared only to it, this is a 2 or less.

I read "The Vision of Emma Blau" immediately after reading "Stones from the River," and I was as enthralled by the characters in this book as I was in the first. The occasional mention of characters from the other book made this story a wonderful blending of the two, peopled with characters you feel you know intimately. Another case of not wanting the book to end. I was a bit disappointed in the ending, however. I wanted to know more, a lot more!

ONE OF THE MANY GREAT BOOKS URSULA HEGI HAS WRITTEN.
Having previously read, many of Ursula Hegi's books, I was not disappointed with a continuation of some of the characters from her "Stones from the River". This book is also equal to that wonderful book. Here as usual you get in the skin of her characters, from their observations to their priorities and justifications.

In this book emigrant Stefan Blau comes to the US and eventually settles in a small town in New Hampshire. He has picked up the skill for French cooking and does well for himself in a small restaurant he creates. However, this is not his dream. His dream is an apartment building he is inspired to build: The Wasserburg. In a daydream while boating, he is inspired not only by the building he imagines creating, but a child he imagines playing in its courtyard.

Stefan's financial adventures go well, but his personal life is troubled. Things go on that bring one misfortune to the other to his doorstep. I don't want to go into too much detail and ruin the book, but this book isn't all doom and gloom. This is a not-so-typical families saga, with both good and bad. However, there are forces in Stefan Blau's life that eventually steer him to lead his life in a particular fashion. This book chronicles Stefan Blau's family over 3 generations and 2 continents. An excellent tale of a family, the ties that contrict, bind, bond and break one.

SOLID SENSE OF EACH CHARACTER AND WHO THEY ARE:

As always Ursula Hegi fleshes out her characters. You understand the motivation of Stefan and his family right down to the youngest grandchild Emma. Not till the end of the book do you understand the meaning of the name... At least I didn't.

YOU CAN PICTURE THE WASSERBURG:
What I particularly liked is the description of the house. You can see it through the author's eyes. I love houses so this was pleasant. Also, you see the basis for all the characters, but not in a descriptive way. You get in their skin. This story centers around a community and a family living in this one building.

YOU CAN IMAGINE BEING GERMAN AND IN AMERICAN DURING WWII LEFT YOU FEELING DIVIDED.
One other point, I imagine dear to Ursula Hegi's heart is the portrayal of a German family in American when Germany was the enemy. She describes how the immagrant family feels out of place in both country, but beholden to both.

An excellent read, hard to put down.