The Civil Wars of Jonah Moran: A Novel

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Summary: A SPLENDID SECOND NOVEL BY A GIFTED WRITER
Review: I thought The Civil Wars of Jonah Moran was a great book. It took place in the pacific northwest. It is about this woman in her mid 30s. She comes back to this town in the northwest. It is filled with romance, heartbreak, love, dedication to family, and a on going feud with her mother. It also has some mystery to it. If you are interested in this sort of thing you will like it. This was my first time reading a Reynolds book. It was excellent. I wouldn't mind reading something else of hers again!

Rating:
Summary: An entertaining read.
Review: I was drawn into this story quickly. The author has perfectly captured the geography and characters of the Olympic Penninsula, and Lila, in particular, is a baffling character whom the reader wants to understand. But in the end, I felt that the resolution was sewn up through contrivance, reconciliations were almost arbitrary, and the great "why" at the heart of the book didn't explain the heartlessness of Lila's actions. As she did in The Starlite Drive-In, this writer has once again organized her plot around a mental/neurological condition, but her portrait of Aspberger syndrome is not complex or compelling like her portrait of agoraphobia. Both books deal with another familiar theme...the dual nature of men, and which parts count, when remembering a very flawed man who has committed acts of betrayal while living a respectable life. This an entertaining book, but I was hoping for more than entertainment after that fantastic first chapter--and the final passage is as trite, clumsy-footed and improbable as a Sasquatch sighting.

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Summary: From the powerful prologue I was hooked
Review: In her wonderful second book, Marjorie Reynolds creates an intriguing story set in the logging town of Misp in Washington's Olympic Peninsula. From the gripping prologue, Ms.Reynolds carries the reader through Jessica Moran's profound search for truth that combines deep family angst with cultural bitterness and small town prejudices. I was hooked from the very beginning and read her book straight through. Jessica's journey for truth set against the backdrop of a vanishing part of Pacific Northwest life fascinated me.

Rating:
Summary: More, Please
Review: Marjorie Reynolds' book THE CIVIL WARS OF JONAH MORAN sat on my bookshelf for a couple of years before I pulled it out from the near bottom of one of my many stacks of unread books (as a fellow reader I'm sure you can relate to that). Although I should've read this book when it first came out, I'm glad I waited until now. Jonah Moran has Asperger's Syndrome and two years ago I wouldn't have had a clue as to what this was all about. In the past month I have done a lot of research on this syndrome since the child of a friend was diagnosed with it. I had no idea this book referred to A.S. until I started to read it. When they say there are no accidents, they're right.

Back to the story though - this is a wonderful book. I loved Ms. Reynolds' first novel and was not disappointed with this one. Although there are some complex twists and turns to the plot, she manages them with ease and clarity. The relationships between Jessica and her family are realistic & well-developed and the changes that take place are logical. I've spent very little time in the Pacific Northwest, but I enjoyed reading about the area and the Native American side of the story makes it even more interesting.

I place Marjorie Reynolds right up there with Elizabeth Berg, Jane Smiley, and Anita Shreve in her ability to tell a good story about people you'd like to know.

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Summary: A Fresh New Read In The Rain Forest!
Review: Reynolds easily transports the reader into the magical emerald mists of the Olympic Peninsula's temperate rain forest. Her main character, Jessica Moran, is wrapped in a weave of protective love for her brother who suffers from a newly discovered neurological disorder called Asperger's Syndrome.

Jessica's life is further complicated by her difficult but triumphant struggles in romance as well as her mother/daughter relationship. Reynold's characters have depth and courage. It's a wonderful, rewarding, cozy read. Enjoy!!

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Summary: rivets attention as family tensions grow during crime search
Review: Set in the majestic rain forests of the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State, Marjorie Reynold's admirable "Civil Wars" compels the reader's attention in a tautly told arson/murder mystery. The crackling pace of the novel, however, does not diminish the superior characterizations which provide complexity and depth to an otherwise exciting, but non-groundbreaking, novel. Indeed, the psychological tensions of the Moran family -- their origins, impact and resolution -- are the genuine backbone of the novel. Relationships twisted by guilt, abandonment, resentment and resignation become the true focus of the reader's attention; the ever-present dampness and density of growth of the area become symbolic counterpoints to the aridity of human contact the Moran mother and daughter have with one another.

Ironically, this fecund environment (lavishly described by Ms. Reynolds) has generated a remarkably fractured family. The angry matriarch, Lila Moran, capably presides over a logging empire while bemoaning the condition of her personal life. Her son, Jonah, never has emerged as a man, and instead of acknowledging his retardation due to a relatively rare neurological disorder, Lila prefers to rue his adult childhood obsession with Civil War figures. As disappointed as she is with her son, she saves a special animosity for her daughter, Jessica, who has returned home after a failed marriage and an unsatisfying adulthood. Jessica's anguish centers around the tragic drowning death of her father, who perished while attempting to rescuse Jonah, who was precipitously thrown in the water by Lila, in a brutally cruel manner of teaching him to swim. This scar runs like a red thread through "Civil Wars" and only through Jessica's renewal of a relationship with the sympathetically-portrayed Callum Lake is there any chance of healing. Callum, unfortunately, never receives the in-depth portrait he otherwise richly deserves. His adolescent feelings for Jessica serve both as personal and dramatic motivation in the resolution of the arson/murder investigation which professionally absorbs his time.

There is much to admire in Marjorie Reynolds' writing. She can, without questions, probe to the inner recesses of our emotions and provide unflinching portraits of both human good and evil. She is a nuanced writer as well, always writing to make her characters believable. My sole reservations with her second novel are small, but critical. The reader knows, from the first fifty pages, that the plot will be resolved tidily; Lila and Jessica's coming-to-grips with their own unresolved hurt and betrayal appears almost like a soap opera. The author's brilliant first novel, "The Starlite Drive-in" did not have these flaws. Nevertheless, "Civil Wars" is an honorable, penetrating look into a family at war with itself.

Rating:
Summary: rivets attention as family tensions grow during crime search
Review: Set in the majestic rain forests of the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State, Marjorie Reynold's admirable "Civil Wars" compels the reader's attention in a tautly told arson/murder mystery. The crackling pace of the novel, however, does not diminish the superior characterizations which provide complexity and depth to an otherwise exciting, but non-groundbreaking, novel. Indeed, the psychological tensions of the Moran family -- their origins, impact and resolution -- are the genuine backbone of the novel. Relationships twisted by guilt, abandonment, resentment and resignation become the true focus of the reader's attention; the ever-present dampness and density of growth of the area become symbolic counterpoints to the aridity of human contact the Moran mother and daughter have with one another.

Ironically, this fecund environment (lavishly described by Ms. Reynolds) has generated a remarkably fractured family. The angry matriarch, Lila Moran, capably presides over a logging empire while bemoaning the condition of her personal life. Her son, Jonah, never has emerged as a man, and instead of acknowledging his retardation due to a relatively rare neurological disorder, Lila prefers to rue his adult childhood obsession with Civil War figures. As disappointed as she is with her son, she saves a special animosity for her daughter, Jessica, who has returned home after a failed marriage and an unsatisfying adulthood. Jessica's anguish centers around the tragic drowning death of her father, who perished while attempting to rescuse Jonah, who was precipitously thrown in the water by Lila, in a brutally cruel manner of teaching him to swim. This scar runs like a red thread through "Civil Wars" and only through Jessica's renewal of a relationship with the sympathetically-portrayed Callum Lake is there any chance of healing. Callum, unfortunately, never receives the in-depth portrait he otherwise richly deserves. His adolescent feelings for Jessica serve both as personal and dramatic motivation in the resolution of the arson/murder investigation which professionally absorbs his time.

There is much to admire in Marjorie Reynolds' writing. She can, without questions, probe to the inner recesses of our emotions and provide unflinching portraits of both human good and evil. She is a nuanced writer as well, always writing to make her characters believable. My sole reservations with her second novel are small, but critical. The reader knows, from the first fifty pages, that the plot will be resolved tidily; Lila and Jessica's coming-to-grips with their own unresolved hurt and betrayal appears almost like a soap opera. The author's brilliant first novel, "The Starlite Drive-in" did not have these flaws. Nevertheless, "Civil Wars" is an honorable, penetrating look into a family at war with itself.