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The Plain Sense of Things
In prose as clean and beautiful as the stark prairie setting, The Plain Sense of Things tells the stories of three generations of a western Nebraska family. These tales of sorrow and hope are connected by the sinews of need and flawed love that keep families together. A farm wife struggles to support her children after the death of her second husband; a young woman grapple...more
Paperback, 248 pages
Published
September 1st 2008
by UNP - Bison Original
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This quietly moving novel follows various members of an extended family in rural western Nebraska from the 1930s through the 1950s, with a couple of short concluding chapters set in the 1970s, as the third generation, which has grown and scattered, returns to the community. Written in a very understated way about routine day-to-day hardscrabble lives, it understates both the family dysfunction that so many writers would overdo and the small, redemptive moments as well. Not much drama here, so so...more
Donna
added it
About the dynamics of 3 generations of a rural Nebraska family. For such a short book, there were too many characters to keep track of and the story a bit depressing. Joern's THE FLOOR OF THE SKY was a great book. This one was a disappointment.
I like to read about the wide open spaces of Nebraska so I picked this up at the library. The book covers different members of a NE extended family from pre-WWII to after the war. It's not the cheeriest collection, but it's a good Nebraska read.
Beautifully written and simply told interlinked stories of family members surviving a hardscrabble life on the Plains. Joern leads us into the interior lives of her honest hardworking characters with prose so lucid that reading her work is as good as breathing in the sharp unforgiving air of the Plains states.
A novel in stories (although my library labeled it "short stories") told from the perspective of various people from several generations in a family. The voices are all distinctive and convincing, and her writing drew me in from the first page. I loved her first novel, and I was not at all disappointed in this second book. I'm looking forward to more from Joern in the future. It says something that she's the only writer with two books in the Flyover Fiction series. Small presses don't ...more
Loved this book. Another great family saga set on the plains of Nebraska. Captivates the love, disdain and hard work of a life made out of the land.
A lovely novel. The first 3/4 pulled me through very quickly, but I was a little disappointed in the ending, which felt like a too-quick wrap-up. Overall, a good fast read.
Paulette
marked it as want-to-read
Good startrib review. MN writer. "The ways the heart weathers chronic hardship"
Elsie
added it
This is the story of three generations of an ordinary family beginning in 1930
Very clean writitng style. I couldn't put this one down.
This book followed members of the same family for half a century through their hardships living in Nebraska. It was snippets of each life, so it was hard to really get to know the characters (with the possible exception of Alice) and empathize with them. It was just ok for me... a quick read but nothing spectacular.
A detailing of the "hard-scrabble life" through many different pairs of eyes in an accumulating series of short stories. Perhaps the understated, undemonstrative life is worth living.
A book in short stories. Family history in rural Nebraska across the 20th century. Very sweet and sad.
Jake Barnett
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Deborah Parins Zich
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Recommended to Catherine by:
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