Rating: 
Summary: Sights Unseen hauntingly recreated my childhood.
Review: I come from dysfunctional Southern family plagued by alcholism, mental illness and the inability to express affection to children. Many of us were raised by house-maid surrogate mothers. The characters in this book were very real to me. I've had the experience of trying to catapult vomit from the second story of a vacation home so as not to upset my grandfather. I read it in one sitting. Ellen Foster and a Virtuous Woman did not move me in this way.
Rating: 
Summary: A tragic story of a child growing up without a whole mother.
Review: I felt extremely sorry for the children in this novel. Kaye Gibbons made me feel as though I was with those children myself. Feeling all the neglect and disgust that they recieved from their mother. Watching their grandfather pamper and spoil their mother and hate them tore them to pieces. They never experienced what other kids had because their poor mother was crazy. Their strong, bold father always trying to do the best thing for them and his wife deserves the credit. He is by far a hero in this novel. The children also are the strongest I've ever seen because they perservered and grew up to be productive human beings.
Rating: 
Summary: unseen is the word
Review: I read this book two years ago and had the opportunity to participate in an interview with the author on National Public Radio. Ms. Gibbons was gracious, of course, but she could not answer the obvious difficulties in this book. The chronology is confused, and while the book reaches for important issues, ie the need for a young girl to have a mother, the treatment of the characters is shallow. The longing is there, and it is expressed well, but ultimately, the miraculous "healing" of the mother and her immediate death after her restoration--undermine whatever strength was in the novel. The one character that the reader has no trouble believing is Pearl, the caring maternal housekeeper. She is a jewel of characterization, much needed and appreciated in this novel.
Rating:
Summary: unseen is the word
Review: I read this book two years ago and had the opportunity to participate in an interview with the author on National Public Radio. Ms. Gibbons was gracious, of course, but she could not answer the obvious difficulties in this book. The chronology is confused, and while the book reaches for important issues, ie the need for a young girl to have a mother, the treatment of the characters is shallow. The longing is there, and it is expressed well, but ultimately, the miraculous "healing" of the mother and her immediate death after her restoration--undermine whatever strength was in the novel. The one character that the reader has no trouble believing is Pearl, the caring maternal housekeeper. She is a jewel of characterization, much needed and appreciated in this novel.
Rating:
Summary: Not Gibbons's best, but really, really good nonetheless
Review: I'll read anything written by or about Kaye Gibbons. She's quintessentially southern, lyrical, insightful, etc.
And she suffers herself from bipolar disorder, I've read, so this book must have been written from the bottom of her gut. It's hard to discern where reality gives way to fiction and vice versa.
Heart-wrenching, redeeming, and definitely worth the read.
Rating:
Summary: Promising Southern Women Writers: Kaye Gibbons
Review: In the past few years Southern Fiction has exploded into the mainstream. Recognition for Southern writers has risen to new heights and readers, especially Southern readers, are the beneficiaries of some of the best fiction anywhere. Contemporary Southern Fiction has a unique and timeless perspective. One of the most promising new Southern writers is Kaye Gibbons. Ms Gibbons is a shining light and her novels are exceptional. Like the characters she so carefully and precisely creates, her style is compassionate and spirited. She offers an especially unique and fresh portrayal of women in the South. Her most recent novel, Sights Unseen is a haunting story, dealing with the difficult problem of manic depression. Retrospectly told from the point of view of Hattie, the daughter of a manic depressive, this story focuses on one family's struggle for normality. Hattie longs for a mother who will read bedtime stories and bake cookies, but her reality is austere. Young, confused, and excluded Hattie makes painful attempts to understand and accept her mother's illness. While her family tries to protect her, Hattie finds herself the objective center of the situation. While the rest of her family seems immersed in her mother's illness, Hattie watches and absorbs. It is as if she is ghost of sorts, ever-present but uninvolved. Hattie tries desperately to belong. Her nurse and her brother are her only viable connections to the family. However, it is a relationship with her mother for which Hattie longs. Hattie's mother is incapable of such a relationship and as a result Hattie finds that passing her mother in the hall is like passing a stranger on the street. Amazingly, this is a story about depression without being depressing. This novel is a must read for mothers and daughters. In the same way many mothers and daughters flocked to the theater together to see Steel Magnolias, they should read this book together. Undoubtedly, Kaye Gibbons intended to illuminate the ups and downs of all mother-daughter relationships. It is a special bond that even the most extreme circumstances can not break. In Sights Unseen, Ms. Gibbons gracefully confronts a subject that would be difficult for most writers. It is perhaps most remarkable that Ms. Gibbons is able to write about this subject despite her own personal struggle with severe depression. This is Ms. Gibbons' fifth novel. All her novels place women as the central characters, and these women are clearly Southern. What is wonderful about her characters is they are extraordinary in an ordinary way. They are not tragic heroines. They are real women with real problems and real triumphs. They strike an unusual balance between wisdom and imprudence, strength and frailty. Ms. Gibbons' characters are like women we know; they are not Scarlett O'Hara. Ms. Gibbons' portrayal of Southern women deserves praise and recognition. Other books by Kaye Gibbons include: Ellen Foster, A Virtuous Woman, A Cure for Dreams, and Charms for the Easy Life.
Rating: 
Summary: Life with Mother!
Review: Kaye Gibbons has long been one of my favorite writers. Whether it was reading about a young Ellen Foster dealing with her abusive father or a woman who prepares meals for her husband to eat after she dies, it is as if Ms. Gibbons characters have become cherished friends. Unfortunately, as I read the story of the Barnes family about their manic depressive mother and wife, these characters never really got under my skin. Perhaps it is my failing that I found it diffcult to read about this subject matter and that I never felt I came to know the characters but this book left me hungering for another Gibbons' title I can sink my teeth into.
Rating:
Summary: Life with Mother!
Review: Kaye Gibbons has long been one of my favorite writers. Whether it was reading about a young Ellen Foster dealing with her abusive father or a woman who prepares meals for her husband to eat after she dies, it is as if Ms. Gibbons characters have become cherished friends. Unfortunately, as I read the story of the Barnes family about their manic depressive mother and wife, these characters never really got under my skin. Perhaps it is my failing that I found it diffcult to read about this subject matter and that I never felt I came to know the characters but this book left me hungering for another Gibbons' title I can sink my teeth into.
Rating:
Summary: Moving story
Review: Sights Unseen is a moving story about a young girl who has a mother who is mentally ill, and by all accounts, unable to have a real relationship with her daughter. The yearning for the closeness young Hattie wanted with her mother, Maggie, is only too heartbreaking. This book not only shows how hard it is for Hattie to deal with her mother's emotional dips, but for her brother, Freddy, as well as her father. Pearl, the loving housekeeper, sometimes seemed to be the life preserver that kept the family afloat. She's a likable character, and it's too bad you don't know more about her. The only complaint I have about the book, or Kaye Gibbons as an author in particular, is the fact that there is not more dialoge in the book. The story is there, but there should be more interaction and depth between the characters.
Rating:
Summary: Disturbing, yet touching and surprisingly sympathetic
Review: Sights Unseen is Kaye Gibbons novel of a family's tentative and complicated love as seen through the eyes of it's fervent, young daughter. Desperate to capture some degree of familial normalcy and traditional roles in the wake of her exotic, manic-depressive mother, Hattie nudges
to fit in. Kaye Gibbons gives Hattie a language that is common in tone, but exceptional in conjuring up images of place and time. There is comfort in the use of familiar tv shows and brand names long forgotten by the reader. Although the author downplays actual events that drive most novels, she uses tone, gesture, and reaction that leave the
reader understanding completely - "She looked at me sideways,
as if she were a gull beside which some other bird had landed." It left me nostalgic for a place I've never been and a family I wouldn't think I wanted.
|
