SILVER MEDALIST, 2011 INDEPENDENT PUBLISHER BOOK AWARDS (AUSTRALIA/NZ FICTION)
Set in provincial Australia in the early sixties, Rain is a multigenerational family saga that chronicles the lives of three generations of the Wallin sawmilling dynasty. It explores the often difficult but enduring ties between mothers and daughters, men and women: the sacrifices, compromises, and patterns of emotion that repeat themselves through generations. In a journey that spans four decades and crosses the globe, Rain is an epic tale of the choices and consequences that comprise one family's history. By turn dark and amusing, Rain delivers an emotionally charged revelation about love, loss, guilt, self-discovery and redemption. The enduring question of family bonds-escapable or not-divides, conquers, and triumphs.
Leigh K Cunningham is a lawyer with a career as a senior executive for a number of public companies in her home country of Australia. She has three master’s degrees in law (Master of International Trade & Investment Law) and commerce (Master of Commerce) and an MBA (International Management) where she graduated as ‘Top Student’.
Leigh has won seven awards for her four titles with her latest title, BEING ANTI-SOCIAL was chosen by IndieReader as one of the Best Indie Books for 2013. BEING ANTI-SOCIAL also won gold at the Readers' Favorite Book Awards (Chick-Lit) and gold at the Reader Views Literary Awards (Humor).
Leigh's other title for the adult fiction market, RAIN, won gold at the 2011 Indie Excellence Awards (Literary Fiction) and silver at the Independent Publisher Awards (IPPY) in the Regional Fiction: Australia/New Zealand category. RAIN was #1 on the Amazon bestseller list for Women’s Fiction.
THE GLASS TABLE and its sequel, SHARDS - Leigh's titles for the children's market, won silver medals at the Mom's Choice Awards (2010).
Leigh's next title, REWRITTEN is a story about second chances.
First, I looked up "Rain" on Leigh Cunningham's website and saw the wonderful awards--winner of the Literary Fiction category at the 2011 Indie Excellence Awards, and a silver medal at the 2011 Independent Publisher Awards (IPPY) in the Regional Fiction: Australia/New Zealand category. So, I thought it would be a really good choice to buy and read. Turns out I was absolutely, one hundred percent right. This family saga began to draw me in from the first page, and by the end of the first chapter, I was hooked. Leigh has a way with words that I loved. Her talent had me re-reading many of her sentences because they were so well done - I wished I'd written them myself. Such as - He had crossed the line: the one that separated justifiable wrong and unforgivable sin. And - So many people wise about death, even though they had no personal experience with it, for if they knew death, as Helen now did, they would also know that a blade wounded, a stab into the heart was fatal, and time had just two hands, and was not a father. Each character the author zeroed in on came to life and I found myself caring about what would happen to them. This wasn't a feel-good book as much as it was realistic and thought provoking. The story has stayed in my mind for a few days and so I decided I had to write a review and encourage others to read it so they could enjoy the story as much as I did.
Rain is at the top of my list of favourite books of the year. It's the kind of the book that leaves a lasting impression and I've often found myself thinking of the characters while sitting on the train on my way to work.
This book brought out so many emotions in me and for me, that's a sign of a good book. I love books that can make me feel for the characters and be in the moment with them rather than just reading and observing.
I also really enjoyed the Australian setting.
This book is a "must-read". I'm going to read it again because I loved it that much!
That Rain is set in rural Australia was the main reason I accepted this novel for review from expat author Leigh Cunningham. Sisters Helen and Grace are heiresses to their fathers successful small town sawmill business. While Helen enjoys working with her father, Grace, lively and beautiful, wants more than their country town can offer her and escapes to Sydney to pursue her own success, leaving behind her ambitious boyfriend. Spurned, Michael Baden decides to turn his attention to the plainer Helen but their marriage triggers a chain of misfortune, hardship and grief that echoes through their lifetime.
A saga of generational tragedy, Cunningham chronicles the bleak fate of the Baden family in Rain. It is a stark and discouraging tale at the cycle of family dysfunction as Michael Baden revisits his own childhood damage on his vulnerable wife and children. I found Rain difficult to read at times because the Baden family members suffer so relentlessly from setbacks both of their own making and simply by the vagaries of fate. This is an emotionally charged story that explores many confronting topics including the curse of alcohol and drug addiction, emotional neglect, rape and physical abuse. The characters evoke both sympathy and dismay as they struggle with the burdens of their heritage. Rain illustrates the inexorable slide of Michael and Helen into a mire of despair causing the disintegration of their good intentions. Despite glimmers of hope and triumph neither can hold onto their successes. Michael undoubtedly triggers and supports the family’s failures, his drinking, neglect and general poor behaviour, a legacy that his children are unable to escape. Helen is slowly defeated by her circumstance, her honest efforts to improve her life and that of her children eventually waning in the face of repeated setbacks. The children themselves become victims, largely ill-equipped to break away from their background. It is desperately sad to witness Michael and Helen’s children suffer, and sadder still to see those who may break the cycle defeated by external forces they cannot control.
The story progresses in a cohesive manner, spanning as it does four decades. While Rain is an almost brutally tragic tale it is honest and thought provoking. Cunningham obviously has a flair for the dramatic and at times, particularly to begin with, the language is excessively florid but it doesn’t dilute the heart-wrenching emotion behind the words. I would have liked a little more shading as the tragedy is almost unrelieved even at the conclusion and while I was compelled to keep reading it was not easy to be exposed to such sustained misery even though the lessons it imparts are important.
An emotionally insightful novel, Rain was the winner of the Literary Fiction category at the 2011 National Indie Excellence Awards, and a silver medalist at the 2011 Independent Publisher Book Awards (IPPY) in the Regional Fiction: Australia/New Zealand category.
Rain, Leigh K. Cunningham's first novel for adult readers, is a page-turning story of three generations in a small-town Australian family during forty turbulent years from 1965 to 2005.
The tale mostly, but not exclusively, revolves around a second-generation mother, Helena, and her third-generation daughter, Carla. Even as they deny they need to, they give their lives to the men and boys who are their fathers, sons, brothers, and lovers—and receive in return enormous grief.
And yet this is no mindless indictment of the male characters. For instance, at the beginning Helena and her sister Grace, heiresses to their father's sawmill business, both favor the physically desirable Michael Baden. He readily returns the interest of the more attractive sister, Grace, to the point of consummating a youthful affair with her.
Grace, however, has her eye on a more glamorous life than Michael can be a part of. A worker in the mill, he's a bastard grandson of the impoverished and physically abused woman who claims to be his mother. He's also a victim of severe playground abuse for nothing more than being who he is.
When Grace leaves for a more worldly existence in Sydney, Michael turns his attention to the "sensible and comfortable" Helena. This reader finds it difficult to blame either of them for what follows. Abuse—psychological, physical, and sexual—dominates Cunningham's story. And yet all of her characters—no matter how possible it is to say they invite their own grief—are sympathetic. This reader wanted each of them to succeed, even as he grew in his knowledge that most of them wouldn't.
The playground bullies and the gang-rapists of a fourteen-year-old girl in a nighttime cemetery are faceless, as they should be in this kind of story. Nobody has to be convinced those hobgoblins exist, even in fiction that blissfully—in this reader's humble opinion—eschews paranormality.
But what this reader most admires in Rain is Cunningham's unsentimental but intensely moving style of writing. She has no need to tell you when she's touching your heart. You simply feel it.
Filled with themes of struggle, loss, and triumph, "Rain" portrays a family through the decades. From the 1960s to the mid-2000s, this journey of one family living in rural Australia is a testament to survival in the face of extremes.
A fire in the mill owned by the Wallin family is only the beginning of what seems like a trail of grief. The theme of rain peppers the pages, too; not just the seasonal rains that bring devastation but the symbolic rain of grief and loss.
But the rains can also remind us of other things, as in this excerpt:
Carla, the third generation daughter is contemplating the rain. "I am waiting for the rain to pass so I can hike again through the bush—I go there in search of my guide. There is something about the rain. I have always found it comforting. It makes me feel warm even when it is cold. I love the way it smells, especially the way the bush smells after the rain. I love the way it tastes and I love the way it feels on my skin. Rain is life—everything grows from it...."
When I chose this family saga, I expected something quite different. I enjoyed the symbolism, the struggles, and the persistence of the characters despite the tragedies that seemed to flank them. Perhaps even because of the tragedies. But parts of the story seemed bogged down by a tendency toward "chronicling" the lives of the characters rather than showing them through their interactions and through dialogue.
I did care about what happened to them, but at times, I felt frustrated by the detached tone of the author. I would still recommend this book to those who enjoy family stories. My rating is 3.5 stars.
Oh Wow! Brilliant writing of a despairing saga. So many socio-economic factors makeup the characters in this book. Heartbreaking and uplifting, by turns. I loved the writing in this book!
I read Rain, Leigh K. Cunningham's first work of fiction for adult readers, knowing it wasn’t a romance novel, even if it dealt with the romantic affairs of several women in an Australian family in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.
Rain is a clear-eyed account of those affairs, boldly telling us why the women do what they do and why the men they fall in love with mostly fail them.
And yet, even as Helena, her daughter Carla, and the other women in Rain err romantically, Cunningham’s unsentimental telling of her story made me take them seriously. I could only sympathize with them. If I were in their positions, wouldn’t I err no less badly than they do?
Nor did Cunningham’s tale preclude my sympathy for the majority of the male characters. They do what they do because, given their limited view of the world, that’s what males do.
Rain is a profound current-day tragedy. It’s for the serious reader, the one like myself who wants no unjustified, lighthearted optimism but a deep involvement, to the point of tears, with characters who are all too real.
I'm divided on this one. The story is a downer. More of a downer than any I have ever read. I kept expecting something positive to happen but it didn't. Just when you think it's getting better for the character, they are hit with something even more terrible. I guess life is like that sometimes but why would I want to read about that?
It's often difficult to read because it's written in a very old fashioned English...and Australian English at that. It gets better as we get into the 70's and out of the 60's. So that's good.
I guess the bottom line is that although it has some very engaging characters and situations, in the end, if I had it to do over, I would not pick this one up again.
"Rain" is a great book, spanning several generations of what seems to be very bad luck for an Australian family. It is emotional and visceral, a tale of love and loss. The story is told third-person at times, at others through letters and even through journal entries. With a lot of narrative, it carries the reader along at a quick pace to an unexpected ending, more sweet than bitter.
I really liked this book, but I have to say that there was very little happiness to be found in this family saga. It seems that every character was doomed to a life of disappointment and hardship. I have to admit that this is the kind of story I like at times but if you don't like having awful things happening all the time pick another book.
Maybe I haven't given this enough pages yet, but I am abandoning it for now. The writing style is pretentious, archaic and disjointed. The narrative started out nowhere and kept going in circle, nowhere. It was a big disappointment for my expectations because of all the Indie awards it received. I'll try it again this winter, perhaps.
"BRILLIANT STORY PLENTY OF HIGHS AND LOWS KEEPS YOU INTERESTED FROM START TO FINISH.THE STORY GOES THROUGH MANY GENERATIONS AND HOW LIFE TREATS THEM AND HOW THEY COPE. A STORY OF CHOICES AND OUTCOMES IN ONE FAMILY's HISTORY
Loved loved! Downloaded to my kindle in Bali after hating the Hunger Games and Wicked. Got through this in less than a week. Sad characters but I could NOT put it down! Totally riveting!
I read RAIN in practically one sitting. It's not happy reading, but certainly compelling. If you like stories that tear at your heart, then you will love RAIN.
Story of an Australian family through a three generations. Fascinating tale of family curses (real and imagined) and the struggle for survival of the soul. Well written, touching and very enjoyable.
I really enjoyed the language the author used. Her choice of vocabulary drew me in. Every character was so well drawn out. So much irony. This book truly embodied the adage, “ Careful what one wishes for…..”
It goes to show that this book routinely pops up in my mind for years after I read the book. The impact of this small but mighty novel has is nothing short of heart achingly honest.
I must admit I did not like the book. The most I can say the lecture was average, as was the writing style. I appreciate the passion of the author for revealing all the wrongs of the world we happen to live in. But it seems to be highly unlikely that the bad fortune does not spare any member of the family. Nearly every page brings new calamity, more and more dramatic and more and more unreal in its extent but lacking the true meaning and depth. I just got very bored reading Rain. I think when something is about everything it is actually about nothing. But I am sure that for fans of soaps and TV dramas the book will be a true pleasure and joy.
This is a provisional five star as the book is not perfect and I reserve the right to change my mind. I thought it struggled just a little bit at the beginning. But after that it knocked my socks off. Good story, good characters, good writing, a deep sense of meaning.... Sympathy for the main characters was a bit of a problem at the beginning, but this quickly resolved itself.
This is a story about a profoundly dysfunctional family, serial tragedy, and the ability to get through all that (mostly) in one piece.
I think it is quite likely this book will read a little differently for those who come from very dysfunctional families, as opposed to those who do not.
I guess I couldn't expect much from a Kindle/Amazon free e-book. While the characters were intriguing and I wanted to believe in the story happening around them, it was just unrealistically depressing and continuously hopeless. I am not a hater of sadness by ANY means, this would be the kind of book that I'd feel empowered by... If it hadn't ended with 100 loose ends. Also, the writer really did not allow much connection to the characters, it felt like all of the characters were still strangers at the end. Bummer.
Hoping it's better than some of it's reviews! Well now that I've finished it I am at a crossroads with my rating. Don't read this if you are feeling depressed! The family portrayed in this novel seems to be the model for the term "dysfunctional". I like Cunningham's style and thought the structure of the story was excellent and perhaps this is why I'm giving it 3 stars. My only complaint in that respect was that as an Australian who has lived in the US for over 20 years, naming the small town where the story was set Maine, was quite annoying,
Had this book on my iPad for my Australia/NZ trip last year but didn't get around to it. (I always try to have a novel or two set in the locales I visit when I am traveling). Started reading it on my way to Galapagos. I was not initially very impressed with it but the farther I read, the more I am enjoying it. The tale of a family, with all of the ups and downs of life, takes place mostly in the small town of Maine, near Sydney. Complex and very flawed characters abound and seem very real.
I don't think my review is fair because I didn't finish the book...I just couldn't get through it. The story seemed ok although I didn't care for how it jumped around so much. My main issue is her writing. I think that because she is from Australia, I had a hard time following her words and staying interested :(
This book drew me in early, the complexity of the characters and storylines made for a great read. It was a little too tragic in places and at least one of the storylines remained unfinished. There were quite a few spelling mistakes as well (common place names)so editing required. Overall though, It only took me a few days to read and was well worth it.
Let's hope that this book is better than the last one. Not that Riversong was bad, but not well-written. And I'm rarely one who criticizes a writing style or quality. Rain, however, has won some awards. Keeping my fingers crossed!
Just enough interest to keep me reading.....I finished because I was hoping the continual depressive tone of the story would improve, giving you a triumph over adversity ending. I'm not quite sure that's what it was.