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Summary: new meaning to "sisterhood"
Review: A book about strong women in a region where everyone was self sufficient. However, this book gives new meaning to "sisterhood" because the story is from an era that pre-dates the feminist movement. As the years pass and the outside world infiltrates this remote village, the women are beginning to articulate their needs, fears, pleasures and strengths. Lippi makes the reader wish for the ability to truly "go home again".
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Summary: Outstanding, little-known book
Review: After reading Rosina Lippi's works written as Sara Donati ("Into the Wilderness" and "Dawn on a Distant Shore"), I was thrilled to find "Homestead". Rosina/Sara has a gift for making you "see" her characters, and this book is no exception. I was truly saddened to reach the end of the book.
Rating:
Summary: Touching
Review: After reading Rosina Lippi's works written as Sara Donati ("Into the Wilderness" and "Dawn on a Distant Shore"), I was thrilled to find "Homestead". Rosina/Sara has a gift for making you "see" her characters, and this book is no exception. I was truly saddened to reach the end of the book.
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Summary: Belongs on top ten for '98
Review: HOMESTEAD is a beautiful, blossoming novel that will summon you back again and again. The stories are like pieces to a puzzle - unique and individual, but when joined together, complimentary in their own purposeful way. The result is a very poignant and vibrant image that stays in your mind's eye long after you've closed the book.
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Summary: A book as real as a black & white photo in a family album
Review: Homestead is the compelling saga of the women in a remote Austrian village in the World War II era. The women, the lives they lived, and the village came alive for me so powerfully that I found myself unable to put the book down. Rosina Lippi's characters are finely drawn and as real as a black and white photograph in the leaves of a family album. As the narrative shifts focus from one woman's story to another's, the village is revealed in all of its dimensions and our understanding of its weaknesses and strengths, loves and fears deepens. This has become my favorite book to give to woman friends (and my mom) this year.
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Summary: I did not want it to end.
Review: I felt that I was a part of each of the families. The older women in my family who , except for one aunt, have all passed on. I loved watching them and listening to their stories. I was always the child observing, even into my 30's. I miss them all so much and this book allowed me another opportunity to sit on the sidelines and listen. I wish that the chaise lounge I now have in my home that had belonged to my grandmother could speak. I would be able to hear all the stories again told by Mother, Grandmother, and several aunts. Rosina Lippi's book brought all that back tome. I eagerly await another of hers to read. I wish it had been longer and even then would not have wanted it to end. I miss those ladies who so greatly influenced my life.
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Summary: Wonderful, poignant, multi-layered stories
Review: I forget who recommended this book to me, but I would like to thank her in absentia. Homestead is spectacular. The setting is an isolated Austrian village, and the inter-related stories span several generations of the villagers, exploring their known and secret links and relationships to each other. The history told in Homestead spans the time from early 1900s to almost 1980, and some of the most gut-wrenching and poignant tales concern the nearness of the Nazi threat during WWII. Once met through the pages of this book, the characters and their motives and secrets will stay with you for a long time.
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Summary: A fluid, poetic, haunting rendering of culture and era.
Review: I found this work haunting my dreams for days, its characters came so fully alive. Rosina Lippi is an extraordinarily poetic writer, creating whole scenes, people and relationships with just a sentence or two and evoking much more than she states. Whole lives are contained easily within one described scene, whole eras of pain and sustenance (especially the war)by a single episode. Part of Lippi's success is the sort of fusion she achieves between short story and novel, since each of the chapters can easily stand alone and be read separately from the others -- loosely connected and building a whole, but allowing some space within the great intimacy she creates with her characters. This is a terrific book -- read it!
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Summary: Outstanding, little-known book
Review: I have been enjoying the high marks other reviewers have given to Homestead. The enjoyed the book so much that I'd like to comment also. I purchased the book after reading through a Houghton Mifflin catalog. The story sounded fascinating. I was a bit concerned when I received the book and saw the family tree and assumed it would be too "historical" for me. That was not the case at all! Like others who reviewed Homestead, I did not want the book to end. I purposefully read the book very slowly. After reading each chapter, I went back to previous times of the characters' lives. I also took time to just reflect on the characters' development. I strongly recommend this book to anyone!
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Summary: a lovely, stunning surprise...
Review: I only happened upon Homestead after finishing (and really enjoying) Into the Wilderness. I was looking for the "Wilderness" sequel release date, and discovered it's author's real name was Rosina Lippi, and not Sara Donati! So, I found Homestead, and it was a lovely, stunning surprise! Actually, the only flaw I could find with the book, was the change in author's names, as I might have missed it! Homestead is a deeply layered, moving, work of art. Every word conservatively, and thoughtfully used, and touches the reader somewhere down deep. A must-own, and visit often novel.
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