Rating: 
Summary: Interesting story that slowly unfolds
Review: I enjoyed this book and recommend it. Perhaps the most memorable thing about it to me was how the story of the three main characters slowly unfolded. I kept wanting to find out more and more about them, so the book was a page-turner for me. The main love story was described in a rather reserved way, however, and seemed to lack passion. Nevertheless, it is an excellent book.
Rating:
Summary: Extraordinarily well written - but slow moving
Review: I read this as part of a book discussion group - we all agreed that the prose is very well written and seems to move you along effortlessly. We also agreed that the characters of Wim and Leandra are passive and passionless. The only character with passion is Pammy, who has a tragic ending. Not a sad book by any means, haunting but in a colorless way.
Rating:
Summary: Well done story of living, loving and dying
Review: In some ways this reminded me of Cold Mountain but I had a much more enjoyable time reading it. The characters were real and realistic and the emotions were intricate as Wim and Leandra made peace with their past, pressent and future.
Rating: 
Summary: I've Read Better Fiction On My Cereal Box...
Review: Leandra lives a quiet life in North Carolina working as a doll repairer. This plays a symbolic importance in the book, as Leandra gives the dolls new lives with restores clothes and pieces. As the book begins her terminally ill brother-in-law, Wim, pays a visit to Leandra in the hopes of spending his last days with her, his long-time love. Ten years earlier, a very young Leandra was summoned to Massachusetts to help care for her beautiful, difficult and distant sister Pamela, who had fled their country background and re-fashioned herself as the sophisticated wife of Wim, a college professor many years her senior. Pamela was cold and often cruel to both her husband and sister, and bitter about her pregnancy. Leandra and Wim were drawn together in the face of Pamela's rejection of them, and as the pregnancy came to a tragic end, the young Leandra found herself preoccupied with Wim, who paced the floor outside her room each night. Soon, Pamela's behavior became more and more irrational and violent, and while Wim and Leandra were out one night, she ended her life. The chasm of grief and shock was too difficult for either Wim or Leandra to cross and they separated, until the time of the novel's opening. The novel is told from both Wim and Leandra's point of view, with Wim's sophisticated and intellectual and Leandra's quiet, wise, and spiritual. Ultimately it is Wim's illness and death that heals both of them. This is a beautifully rendered and deeply touching story.
Rating: 
Summary: Lost Love Briefly Recaptured
Review: Leandra lives a quiet life in North Carolina working as a doll repairer. This plays a symbolic importance in the book, as Leandra gives the dolls new lives with restores clothes and pieces. As the book begins her terminally ill brother-in-law, Wim, pays a visit to Leandra in the hopes of spending his last days with her, his long-time love. Ten years earlier, a very young Leandra was summoned to Massachusetts to help care for her beautiful, difficult and distant sister Pamela, who had fled their country background and re-fashioned herself as the sophisticated wife of Wim, a college professor many years her senior. Pamela was cold and often cruel to both her husband and sister, and bitter about her pregnancy. Leandra and Wim were drawn together in the face of Pamela's rejection of them, and as the pregnancy came to a tragic end, the young Leandra found herself preoccupied with Wim, who paced the floor outside her room each night. Soon, Pamela's behavior became more and more irrational and violent, and while Wim and Leandra were out one night, she ended her life. The chasm of grief and shock was too difficult for either Wim or Leandra to cross and they separated, until the time of the novel's opening. The novel is told from both Wim and Leandra's point of view, with Wim's sophisticated and intellectual and Leandra's quiet, wise, and spiritual. Ultimately it is Wim's illness and death that heals both of them. This is a beautifully rendered and deeply touching story.
Rating:
Summary: Cultural clash equals riveting suspense.
Review: Susan Dodd will make your head spin with the two dissimilar voices she uses in The Mourner's Bench. One is a southern woman raised in modest circumstances; the other is a New England academic to the manor born. Past trauma drove William from Leandra, but now dying, he comes seeking her at her isolated cabin in North Carolina where she's a doll maker. Their reunion is awkward at first, but there's the delicious prospect that they might finally come to love each other at last.
More than the sum of its parts, The Mourner's Bench is a small book for women readers of all ages.
Rating:
Summary: American literature at its best.
Review: Susan Dodd's new novel is beautifully written. It reaches the heart and respects the intellect, something that most novels today do not do. She has mastered her art with a wonderful story.
Rating:
Summary: Kirkus is all wrong. This is a beautifully crafted book.
Review: The book is a true pleasure. My wife read it aloud to me...the language, the story, the tone...all so elegant. This is Dodd's best book yet.
Rating: 
Summary: A very sad book.
Review: The characters in this novel seem to be lifeless, passive, sad, and somehow forever condemn themselves to a life without passion. How could they all live like this? The author's writing is exquisite. But the story is just too sad. I felt very depressed reading this book. I was hoping for at least a somewhat happy ending, but that too didn't happen! What wasted lives!
Rating:
Summary: A powerful book of love and human kindness
Review: The Mourners' Bench is a "must read" for anyone who has ever loved another, nursed someone who is dying or just wants to feel something good way down deep. The sad parts of the book are sad in a good way-the way that lets you feel how powerful love can be and how easily human kindness eases all passings.
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