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In the Fall
by
Jeffrey Lent
In the twilight of the Civil War, Leah, an escaped slave, discovers Norman Pelham, a wounded soldier who lies dying in a battlefield outside Richmond. After she nurses him back to health, Norman brings her to his family farm in Vermont as his wife, and they begin a family. Now the mother of three, and however begrudgingly, accepted in the community, Leah travels back to th...more
Paperback, 528 pages
Published
July 10th 2001
by Vintage
(first published January 1st 2000)
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Apr 30, 2013
Kim Marshall
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
people who love to be touched in places in their souls that they forgot existed.
Having borrowed this book from my daughter who had gotten it in a second hand book store and not read and having never myself herd of the author I had no preconceived notion of what these pages had in store for me. However, once I got going I could not put this book down. I say “once I got going” because to be honest I found Lent’s style a bit hard to get use to. And his style is also a bit hard to describe. It is not that he is very descriptive or that the subject matter is historical fiction o...more
Mar 24, 2008
Suzanne
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
historical-fiction,
new-england
This was Jeffrey Lent's 1st novel and most of the action takes place in new England. It is the story of a family's (interracial) life from the end of the Civil War through prohibition. This was the first novel I have read where the issue of "passing" in a white world was a primary theme. The effect of this on a family is devastating and isolating at times. It becomes a "secret". Basically, Norman, the main character walks home to Vermont after the Civil War with the woman who he loves who also h...more
Mar 30, 2009
Bethany
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
fiction-and-literature
In many ways, this book reminds me of Anna Karenina. There are historical aspects, love interests, views on class and race and general thoughts on life and how different people live it. There is no easy and quick way to sum up a book like this. It is too multi-faceted.
The book is written in three parts. It starts in the Civil War. A young man from Vermont is wounded, found by a runaway slave and falls in love. Then, we move on with one of his son's who is determined to get away from the Vermont...more
The book is written in three parts. It starts in the Civil War. A young man from Vermont is wounded, found by a runaway slave and falls in love. Then, we move on with one of his son's who is determined to get away from the Vermont...more
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
Good read.....not. I very rarely (I don't think ever) give one star for a book. I love to read and can usually find something to like about almost any book I read. This was my exception. If you like slogging through heavy prose and 70 word sentences then this is definitely the book for you. I, however, had a hard time finishing it. I did finish though, because part of me kept wanting so badly for it to get better. This time period is one of my favorites and I was really looking foward to explori...more
I was sitting in a hotel room in Littleton NH when I got to page 214 and the character got off the train in Littleton, NH! One-third of the book takes place in that part of NH--Littleton Diner, Thayer Hotel, Easton, works & lives in Bethlehem, NH, drives backroads around Franconia and Whitefield, etc...
The book is really good, altho so descriptive that sometimes I wanted to read ahead, but rarely did, as I found that in some narrative paragraph was a jewel that kept the continuity of the boo...more
The book is really good, altho so descriptive that sometimes I wanted to read ahead, but rarely did, as I found that in some narrative paragraph was a jewel that kept the continuity of the boo...more
CML - Hilliard Branch Book Group selection (October 2001)
A work of literary writing genius. An incredible story that stretches across generations written in a language of melodic prose.
Book description from Amazon.com: "In the twilight of the Civil War, Leah, an escaped slave, discovers Norman Pelham, a wounded soldier who lies dying in a battlefield outside Richmond. After she nurses him back to health, Norman brings her to his family farm in Vermont as his wife, and they begin a family. Now th...more
A work of literary writing genius. An incredible story that stretches across generations written in a language of melodic prose.
Book description from Amazon.com: "In the twilight of the Civil War, Leah, an escaped slave, discovers Norman Pelham, a wounded soldier who lies dying in a battlefield outside Richmond. After she nurses him back to health, Norman brings her to his family farm in Vermont as his wife, and they begin a family. Now th...more
Hmm, tough to sum this one up. I picked it up as a paper back to haul around in my purse, read in the bath tub and generally otherwise abuse, because it had a lovely cover and sounded interesting, Civil War era, perhaps similar, only longer, to Cold .... uhm, why can't I remember that title (they made a movie from it, was one of the best from a book movies I've seen but dang, I just can't summon it at the moment, doubtless it'll come to me in the middle of the night. Mountain? I think that's it)...more
I don't know what to say about this one. I could not take my nose out of it, wanting to get to the mystery at the end. A multi-generational saga set between the War of Southern Aggression and Prohibition.
A couple of quotes to give you and idea:
"The problem, Jamie had long felt, was not the people weren't capable of telling the truth; it was that they weren't able to understand what they were hearing. The truth was no a line from here to there, and not ever-widening circles like the rings on a sa...more
A couple of quotes to give you and idea:
"The problem, Jamie had long felt, was not the people weren't capable of telling the truth; it was that they weren't able to understand what they were hearing. The truth was no a line from here to there, and not ever-widening circles like the rings on a sa...more
Quite often, I select books just because I think the cover is pretty. This one shows an old house on a hill surrounded by trees, all covered in snow.
The story begins, "The boy's grandfather came down off the hill..." and it isn't until about well over 300 pages later that we learn who the boy is. This novel spans three generations, from the civil war era to prohibition. Within these generations, we meet Leah (a runaway slave married to a white soldier), who is haunted by her past; her son, Jamie...more
The story begins, "The boy's grandfather came down off the hill..." and it isn't until about well over 300 pages later that we learn who the boy is. This novel spans three generations, from the civil war era to prohibition. Within these generations, we meet Leah (a runaway slave married to a white soldier), who is haunted by her past; her son, Jamie...more
This story of three generations of a post-civil war interracial family started out compelling. The first generation's story was interesting and felt authentic, although Lent tends to have a very wordy writing style, as others have noted, that weighed the novel down at times. The story of the second generation, though not as comepelling as the first, still kept my attention. However, the last portion of the book covering the third generation and finally exposing the big secret that shadowed the e...more
I enjoyed this book more than I thought I would - learned about the bootleg industry in Vermont/New Hampshire/Canada to supply the northeast, similar to how northern Wisconsin supplied Chicago and areas south. This history was alive to me living in northern wisconsin, so it was interesting to read about it in the white and green mountains. This book spans three generations, commencing with the civil war. Alot of print is spent on the second generation, which viably, was the generation of my gran...more
In The Fall by Jeffrey Lent is one of the best books I've read in a very long time. It took a good bit to get used to the author's voice, as his writing is definitely not in a style that your high school English teacher would have approved. But it works! It really brought to life the characters in the story.
In addition to enjoying the character voices, Lent's descriptions of rural life and farm life were authentic. I felt transported back to the rural northeast of my childhood.
This was no fluff...more
In addition to enjoying the character voices, Lent's descriptions of rural life and farm life were authentic. I felt transported back to the rural northeast of my childhood.
This was no fluff...more
My God but this book took a long time to read. It had a lot of pages, but the biggest problem was the pages and pages of abstruse-slash-philosophical "homespun" monologues by uneducated farm people who never in reality could come close to such verbiage, at least not this opaque and heavy. Aside from that, the story itself was pretty good -- three generations starting with an escaped slave and her Union Army husband, their son who grows up to be a bootlegger and comes to a bad end, and his son wh...more
An ambitious novel on my reading list that was also recommended by Darlene & Ginalie. It's the story of 3 generations of a family beginning with a Vermont farmer/Civil War soldier who marries a runaway slave. It's a powerful story, though the account of the second-generation son who tries to leave his past behind by successfully "passing" in white society probably goes on too long. But the Graham-Greene-type ending that brings the book's themes together so powerfully almost makes up for it....more
This book is the saga of a family over three generations, beginning at the end of the Civil War and going until the 1920s. The first section was hard to get through; I almost gave up on it several times. The author's terse prose was hard to read, and there were long paragraphs of description that were difficult to slog through. Sometimes, however, he'd write a truly beautiful sentence or passage. He is clearly a highly talented writer, he just needed a better editor. The story picked up with the...more
I love the way Jeffrey Lent writes. His command of language is so interesting and different that I find myself stopping every now and then to contemplate the sentence structure because it is so unique in today's world. For instance, in one scene where Norman has gone to fetch a Doctor for his wife who is about to give birth, there is a delay in which the Doctor realizes he is not needed. The scene is tense and both men realize that a drink is in order. The way Jeffrey Lent describes the thoughts...more
Family saga from Civil War's end to about 1926. Vermont man and runaway slave girl fall in love and get married, settling on his parents' farm. They remain fairly isolated from others to avoid ostracism. Leah never even said goodbye to her mother, so one day, decades later, returns "home," but is so tormented by what she finds that she won't even discuss it, affecting her marriage and children. Years later, her grandson, who never knew her, goes back also to unravel the mystery.
I'd probably give this book more like a 3 1/2. It was really well-written, just really hard to read. There was very little dialogue and lots of detail. You couldn't skim the text because there was a lot of nuances and details that you could miss. I found myself actually running my finger down the text to make sure I didn't miss anything.
This would be a great book to read if you have a lot of time, I was hoping to listen to it on CD but it's only on cassette.
This would be a great book to read if you have a lot of time, I was hoping to listen to it on CD but it's only on cassette.
"She talked to them while she worked over them, inhaling the sweet rich horse dust rising from them as if inhaling something of their spirits or souls."
"wakened by the gunshot crack of trees bursting with the freeze"
"breath hung in the starlight like pale moonlight off the snow."
All of these sentences were on ONE page. Lent's books are filled with gorgeous sentences. I read the books for the story, and then go back and savor the sentences like candy.
"wakened by the gunshot crack of trees bursting with the freeze"
"breath hung in the starlight like pale moonlight off the snow."
All of these sentences were on ONE page. Lent's books are filled with gorgeous sentences. I read the books for the story, and then go back and savor the sentences like candy.
This debut novel is at times luminous, but frankly more often dark and brooding. Ir follows three generations of a troubled family, beginning with young Civil War soldier Norman Pelham, who brings home to Vermont and marries Leah, the runaway slave who found him severely wounded and saved his life. The theme of racial tension plays a huge part in the story. Also looming large are themes of loss, recovery and redemption, as Jamie, the youngest offspring of this couple rejects his farm upbringing...more
1 like · like · see review
This was almost a 5 star book for me. I loved the language, the writing the characters. I was transfixed by the first characters introduced and the family saga that developed from the battle fields of the civil war to the bootlegging in the New England states.
There were moments in the writing that you stopped and reread the words and wanted to share their beauty with someone but knowing that only you in that moment could experience the full meaning... just beautiful.
There were moments in the writing that you stopped and reread the words and wanted to share their beauty with someone but knowing that only you in that moment could experience the full meaning... just beautiful.
Jeffrey Lent writes very well. This book is in three parts, covering three generations of the same family. The first part was the most compelling, in my opinion. The characters in the second two parts were a little less believable, especially the third part, which features a 16-year-old who is so mature beyond his years that I had a hard time staying with him as a character.
BUT, the book is worth reading. I enjoyed it overall.
BUT, the book is worth reading. I enjoyed it overall.
A three-generation post Civil War novel. An excellent read, the author's writing style stayed true to the area - a slow-moving, living off the land, descriptive. The story begins with 17-year old Norman Pelham leaving the family's Vermont farm to join in the Civil War, soon introduces the reader to Norman's former-slave bride Leah and comes full circle with grandson Foster's travels to the South to learn the story behind Leah's death.
There was a lot of good and a fair amount of bad in this book. Lent's concept of a multi-generational, interracial family story was interesting. The characters he created were largely believable and the time in which they lived was researched well enough to make the story feel authentic. However, the graphic and gratuitous sex depicted in the novel detracted from the central storyline. The conclusion also felt out of balance with the rest of the book. While I'm sure all readers were itching to k...more
This epic novel of three generations and a racially mixed marriage after the civil war tells a good story, but is tedious to read because of the writing style. It is overly descriptive of everything and uses some short, choppy sentences and long narrative sentences that can be difficult to follow. I read an advance copy of the book, so maybe it was changed in the actual published edition.
I know without checking that the flap copy of this novel calls is a "sprawling family saga." Okay, I was wrong. "American family epic." Same thing. I enjoyed this novel tremendously, although I had the same problem with it that I have with all multi-generational tales. Just when I was really getting interested in a specific character, he or she would grow old and die.
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
An intriguing book about three generations of a family, love, prejudice, loss and persistence. A great story and one that I did not want to end. The language in the first part was a bit difficult to get through because it was written in the words of the country people of the times. The history of the book is interesting as well as the characters.
May 19, 2013
Lynne
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
2013-2014,
historical-fiction
This book grapples with the complicated issue of slavery and race as it plays out in the years following the Civil War. A young soldier from Vermont returns home with a wife who was an escaped slave. The writing is dense and beautiful. The speech patterns of rural Vermont were especially interesting. My only quibble was with the end...but maybe this is the kind of horrible legacy that doesn't end. I will look for more of his work.
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Sep 17, 2010 05:43am