Reviews for A Peculiar Grace

The average rating for A Peculiar Grace based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-05-30 00:00:00 Stephen Kobak Though there were aspects of this book I didn't care for, it turned out to be one of those stories I wished would just go on and on. I didn't want it to end, but now that I'm done with it and it's back at the library, I believe I'll have to buy it to have on my shelf for all time. It's one of those books that makes me wish I could turn to someone next to me as I'm reading in bed at night and say, "Listen to this passage; it's just beautiful." What I didn't like about it: multiple places the word "then" was used when "than" was actually the correct word for the context. Picky, I know, but I'm a noodge about these things. If it had been used in the dialogue, I might have thought the author was going for a folksy feel, but it just seemed like something missed in editing. Also, the female characters all seemed far too similar. They all had quick, acerbic tongues, they all used very similar phrasing, vocabulary and had the same sort of cadence (if you can call it that on the page) to their speech. If I were to pull a paragraph of dialogue out and try to assign it to one of the female characters, it would be tough to do. The many rants spewed at the main character, Hewitt Pearce, were practically identical in tone and intent, delivered in much the same way. Maybe that too was a device the author wanted to use to portray how Hewitt was making the same mistakes over and over again, only with different women, but the way it was presented made it seem more that the women were all simply of the very same mold, which to me showed a lack of skill in developing female characters. That being said, I became engrossed in the story, the description of the Vermont homestead and landscape. Sometimes the description was a bit too detailed, as with the iron work Hewitt produced at his forge, but mostly it was spot on--providing enough imagery to create one's own picture of the surroundings, but not so much as to leave imagination out of the mix completely. You have to grow to love Hewitt, and admire him for his passion, no matter how ill-directed it is. And I suppose I have a thing for outliers, for those just on the edge of the grid, divorcing themselves from the fixations of urban centers and modern conveniences, but I think the isolation, both physical and psychic, that the characters each face on some level, is universal enough to appeal to even those firmly grounded in the material world.

Review # 2 was written on 2007-12-19 00:00:00 Tony Pinkham I read this book in a day. I deeply loved In the Fall, the only other Lent I've read, for many of the same reasons as this fine piece, though they are, on the surface, very different. What ties them together (besides Lent's... er... I nearly used the word "sparse" there :) but sparse his language does often feel, despite its richnesss, and I am appreciative of his disregard for conventional sentence structure in service to his Yankee cadence) is the sense of spanning time in New England - the cycle of the seasons and the cycle of re-evaluation we hopefully undertake as we age. As a native Vermonter (which Lent, much to my joy, is as well) I was struck with the pitch-perfect depiction of the uncommonly common Woodchuck, living out his days in relative seclusion on a hillside. Non-natives in the process of growing old (and aren't we all) will be moved by the protagonist's grappling with the hold old wounds still have on his life, decades later. Makes one reflect on the choices one makes in deference to such things, and the destructive (and potentially transformative) power the past has in our lives. Mmm... yes, well ramble ramble ramble. :) It's a fantastic effing book!