A Brief History of the Flood

Rating:
Summary: Surviving the family
Review: If you are going to read one book this year, read, A Brief History Of The Flood, by Jean Harfenist. The voise of this author captures you from the very first sentence and resonates well after you have finished the last page.
The book, which is a series of linked stories, reads like a novel and follows the life story of Lillian Anderson from the age of eight until twenty when she decides to leave her family and home in Acorn Lake Minnesota. Set during the 60's and early 70's Ms. Harfenist shows an extremely deft eye for character and relationships and how the parents of this first person narrator, Lillian, effect each of their children as they prepare or rather fail to prepare them for the world. It is written with humor and pathos and a hard cold eye for truth, while never sacrificing its sense of compassion and understanding for the people the narrator seems, despite everything, to truly love. As Michiko Kakutani in the New York Times reveiw of books said; Ms. Harfenist "has made an auspicious and stirring debut."

Rating:
Summary: Fun read
Review: The characters in Jean's book are rich and delightfully entertaining. I found this to be a quick read and reminded me of my youthful days at our cabin in Minnesota. It has a very nostalgic feel to it.

Rating:
Summary: A-Ha! A stunning breath of fresh air!
Review: To the list of exciting 'first books' to be released in 2002 add this 'alledged collection of short stories' (really a novel) by Jean Harfenist to the upper portion of that list. Though I'm not entirely sure of why Harfenist (or her editor) decided to categorize this amazingly fine tale of coming of age in Minnesota in the 1960s as a short story collection when the stories are so finely woven together, interrelated and ultimately climactic, that decision is unimportant if you get your hands and mind into this book.

Jean Harfenist is a gifted writer who can paint characters as brilliantly as many of the finest authors today. Her lead character, Lillian, is the penulitmate odd child who simply doesn't fit into this tiny Minnesota family in Acorn Lake. Her hilarious rebellion against what her family and town hold dear propels this book thru her Junior High and Highschool years, eventually resulting in a new adult who ultimately seems the only one of her crazy family to grasp the entirety of the bizarre nature of her maturation; she becomes and even in retrostpect has been the rescuer. Harfenist writes from the heart, with a keen eye for details that define language, costume, atmosphere and impending doom. Her creation of the mother figure is one of the most unique, hilarious, pitiful and well constructed silly-yet-sad ladies of American fiction. This is a book that deserves wide attention from the critics and from readers: you can't help but feel assured that there is MUCH more where this treasure of stories came from. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!