A Map of the World

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Summary: A Map of the World
Review: An extremely moving and realistic story about Alice, a part-time homemaker, who has a bad turn of luck: under her supervision her best friend's 2 year old child drowns in the lake in her back yard. Her strong and stoic husband, Howard, is there to support her but continues to work diligently on their farm as if nothing happened. Alice, however, is not able to recuperate from the tragedy and continues to suffer from depression and guilt over the loss. This spills over into another incident in her life and turns into another tragedy. She is wrongly accused of molesting a student in the school where she works as a school nurse. She is arrested and placed in prison until her bail is reached. In order to bail her out, her husband sells their precious farm and moves the family into a small apartment. Alice is soon bailed out of prison by her husband but is even more deeply grieved and distraught, due to the loss of the farm on her account. The best is yet to come because now she must face trial for the molestation...Other side issues flare up when Howard is drawn to her best friend and through both of their losses and circumstances, they become significantly bonded...

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Summary: Tragedy and banality lie side by side
Review: This book is incredibly well-written and easy to read. One trauma leads to the next - and at the end of the book you are left to wonder - how much can one woman take? The relationships and connections that form in the novel are what make it truly remarkable and unlike other tragedy-stricken characters. I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in a book about family, love, and devotion.

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Summary: Ambitious, but ultimately unfullfilling
Review: Jane Hamilton's A Map of the World starts off with sharp observations of modern familial dynamics. The author, in her first couple of pages, evocates an unsettling vision of the subtle inner conflicts that exist between husband, wife and children. At first, the narrative style of A Map of the World is stunning, revealing of the inner-psyches of the main characters and cutting right to the hearts of things.
However, the novel does not remain compelling for long. Hamilton presents to the readers a series of trials and tribulations that the Goodwins undergoes and the author simply drags out the plot too much. About two thirds of the novel concentrates on the Good win family undergoing trial and the accusation of child sex abuse and during which, the characters and the narrative remain pretty much static. The ending of the book was predictable and unrewarding.
While A Map of the World contain traces of Hamilton's brilliances found in her earlier novel, The Book of Ruth, this novel is majorly flawed. Hamilton's The Book of Ruth was a sucess for the reason that the author withheld the shocking fate of the main character until the very end of the novel. However, in A Map of the World, even as the author tells us the difficulties that her characters are encountering, the readers already too well that in the end everything would work out for the characters.

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Summary: Good, quick read
Review: Not earth shattering but a good plane book...

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Summary: Compelling Read
Review: How many times have we made big mistake, or a costly error, and just wished that we could turn back the clock five or ten minutes to undo the mistake? Multiply that feeling - that desire - millions of time and you can begin to imagine how Alice feels when struck with this horrible tragedy. It's something that could really happen to any one of us, and this book brings that possibility to the foreground.

I was intrigued by and enjoyed the way the chapters are narrated by varying characters. That unique method of story-telling provides the reader with special insiqht into the thoughts and feelings of each character, and how they're feeling about and dealing with this tragedy in their own minds.

I definitely recommend this one.

Rating:
Summary: I'm glad I read it!
Review: The thing that really kind of threw me at first was my initial dislike of Alice. The other main characters were more easily understood. But by the end of the book,she was the most real. I think Hamilton did a great job creating this character who you get to know little by little. Her lack of
the usual"heroine" character traits created a real ambivalence with me towards her. But this is what human beings are. We don't think or say the right things we aren't always good/bad. We're ambivalent. It was a tough read at times,because of the subject matter and all around tone, but it was worth it.
It has alot of what I think is beautiful prose.

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Summary: A map of pain
Review: I find it interesting that so many people rated the book low based on the "depression factor." A sad fact of life is that it isn't always happy - and this book is definitely not about a happy life. It's about pain, loss, betrayal, tragedy; perhaps not an "enlightening" or "engaging" read, but it doesn't betray the reader with a happy-happy joy-joy ending, either.

Hamilton is true to the readers who have the courage to stick with her through Alice's fear, Howard's confusion and feeling of helplessness, the anger and incivility of those who should know better, and the unspeakable pain of Teresa. No other ending would have served these characters justice: it is an honest ending, not neatly wrapped in shiny paper with a slick bow that says, "And they lived happily ever after."

There are many wonderfully light-hearted and happy ending books out there. If you want a light mix of suspense and happy ending, try Mary Higgins Clark. But keep "Map of the World" on your potential reading list if only for the sorrowful and powerful insights into humanity that it provides.

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Summary: THE FIRST HALF IS GREAT, BUT THEN....
Review: as the plot line takes a downwards spiral, so does the admirable skill of the author. Once her character hits jail, her writing is no longer visceral to the point of being that of a virtuoso, but it becomes cerebral, preposterous and the reader is let loose to plod through the pages, hoping the book will grab him again. In the last few pages, it does, as he fondly says goodbye to Ms. Harrison, her story, and her characters.

The main character is difficult to pinpoint: depicted as honest, yet she never confesses to anyone her detailed negligence which caused the death of her neighbor's child. She believes that psychopathically violent women and accessories to armed robberies (her cellmates) are so infinetely wise she almost imbues them with holiness. Her imaginary jail is hardly like the real one, nor the affects it has upon its inmates. One even grows impatient with her long-suffering husband who loses everything to hold onto the marriage. I personally would have bailed out in such extreme circumstances.

All said, the writing in the first half of the book, which takes place at a farm in Wisconsin, is beautifully lyrical and Ms. Harrison has a wonderful way of getting into some of her characters' heads. It's a confusing book because it is about confused people, and it doesn't sustain the same high level of writing all the way through.

I would recommend reading it up to the point of jail time, then skipping to the last chapter. It would be worth it for what you get, and what you miss.

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Summary: I'm waiting ...
Review: I love to read, fiction especially. I just don't understand what anyone finds so compelling about this book. Yes the premise is tragic, but I never cared about the main character. I found her selfish and immature and I liked her husband far more than I liked her. At the end I felt she owed him a big apology - after all, his dreams died too and she never seems to consider that.

Rating:
Summary: Compelling, yet, Disheartening
Review: At the beginning of this book, the setting is on a picturesque farm, smack in the middle of Alice and Howard's dream. They are an ordinary family, who has ordinary problems just like the rest of us. However, things quickly get sucked into a downward spiral when a neighbor's child drowns in the family's pond. Then Alice is wrongfully accused of doing horrible things to the children at her workplace. All of this leads to a theme of good things quickly going bad.
This is a beautifully written book that is extremely moving to read. It's full of detailed emotions and settings, which really grasp you, unlike most other books of today. However, because of the depressing content, I'm afraid I didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I would.
As I previously stated, this book continues on a downward path and never really rights itself. Upon finishing this book, a reader might feel a little relieved just to put an end to the misery. But aside from emotion, this book really should be read. I think that everyone needs a little dose of reality once in awhile.