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Be Home Before Dark
This remarkable collection of related poems delivers a series of artful and poignant character sketches through the narrative voice of Adie, a young girl born into a small New England village in the 1940s. Adie takes us on a tour of the alternately joyful, lonely, sad and sometimes strange lives of her village’s inhabitants and she invites us to witness the struggles each person faces while trying to reconcile an often secret life with an official role the community expects.
Adie’s brother Alan can name the capitals of all forty-eight states and can do so backwards in alphabetical order, because he has this high IQ and because he is so lonely.
Her mother Jeanette cries in the Fall because the trees become naked for months, blown only by a cold mean wind.
Adie’s father says we’ve all got a different drummer. He tells her she will know the right tune when she hears it and soon, because he can already see the starlight in her eyes.
Reverend Ellerbee says girls ask for it with their lipstick and see-through blouses. He says they’ll be pregnant by age fourteen.
Faye, the Reverend’s wife, has ashy blond hair, wears sweaters two sizes too small, and can make her hips move without any music.
Dominick, the Reverend’s brother, has water on the brain and grabs the wallet in his back pocket whenever a car goes by because the Japs are coming.
Adie’s elderly friend Jossie says it’s okay to play in the cemetery because the dead need company. They especially need to hear the voices of children.
Traudl Plunket has the biggest bosoms in town because she is German.
Madelaine Lewis is seventy-nine and dances naked on her roof every Fall. She needs to feel nothing between her and God.
With the honesty and clarity of the child Adie pierces the idealistic veil, exposing and illuminating the psychological flaws and strengths of those around her, while trying to decipher the conflicting and often life-altering messages given her by adults...
In this time of excessive mobility, these poems serve as a remembrance of what life was like in a small New England village when a successful day hinged upon hearing pieces of gossip, having drop-in tea with neighbors, or just feeling as if it was indeed possible to own a town.
Adie’s brother Alan can name the capitals of all forty-eight states and can do so backwards in alphabetical order, because he has this high IQ and because he is so lonely.
Her mother Jeanette cries in the Fall because the trees become naked for months, blown only by a cold mean wind.
Adie’s father says we’ve all got a different drummer. He tells her she will know the right tune when she hears it and soon, because he can already see the starlight in her eyes.
Reverend Ellerbee says girls ask for it with their lipstick and see-through blouses. He says they’ll be pregnant by age fourteen.
Faye, the Reverend’s wife, has ashy blond hair, wears sweaters two sizes too small, and can make her hips move without any music.
Dominick, the Reverend’s brother, has water on the brain and grabs the wallet in his back pocket whenever a car goes by because the Japs are coming.
Adie’s elderly friend Jossie says it’s okay to play in the cemetery because the dead need company. They especially need to hear the voices of children.
Traudl Plunket has the biggest bosoms in town because she is German.
Madelaine Lewis is seventy-nine and dances naked on her roof every Fall. She needs to feel nothing between her and God.
With the honesty and clarity of the child Adie pierces the idealistic veil, exposing and illuminating the psychological flaws and strengths of those around her, while trying to decipher the conflicting and often life-altering messages given her by adults...
In this time of excessive mobility, these poems serve as a remembrance of what life was like in a small New England village when a successful day hinged upon hearing pieces of gossip, having drop-in tea with neighbors, or just feeling as if it was indeed possible to own a town.
- GenresPoetry
154 pages, Paperback
First published February 15, 2011
142 people want to read
About the author
Linda Jean Kohler
1 book2 followersLINDA JEAN KOHLER was born in rural Connecticut, where she grew up during and after World War II. She studied at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, receiving a Bachelor's Degree in English and a Master's Degree in Education (counseling psychology). Further studies took her to Smith College, where she earned a Master's Degree in Social Work. She worked for three decades as a psychotherapist. Her recent book, Be Home Before Dark, is a collection of poems that serve as a remembrance of what life was like in a small New England village at a time long gone when a successful day hinged upon hearing pieces if gossip, having drop-in tea with neighbors, or just feeling as if it was indeed possible to own a town.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
June 7, 2017
Yes, I know I said I didn’t like modern poetry. So why did I read this book three times within a week?—I, who I only rarely read a book a second time.
Is this book even poetry? I am not an expert on genres, but labeling this book poetry seems an understatement to me. I think this book is more than poetry. Whatever it is, it is a masterpiece.
Linda Jean Kohler allows the reader into the brain of a child. And she does this better than any other author I have read before.
When reading this book, I felt like carried on wings into a small New England town as it was in the 1940s and 50s. And there, I saw with the author’s eyes what life was like at this place, at this time, and how this town's surroundings, events, and interactions between people formed the lives of all who lived there and, especially, the lives of those who grew up there.
The observations and revelations in “Be Home Before Dark” are as genuine and convincing as they could possibly be. They lead directly or indirectly, and quite often with irony, to insights that could not easily be gained otherwise, not with so few words anyway.
Even though a different genre, “Be Home Before Dark” reminds me of John Steinbeck’s classic novel “The Grapes of Wrath”. Just as Steinbeck accomplishes that the reader feels catapulted into the time and place of his reality-based fiction, so does Linda Kohler succeed in detaching the reader from the Here and Now to experience another time, another place, and make it feel so real that one might even imagine to smell the air.
No, this little town in New England was not what they call in Germany a “heile Welt” (verbally: “sane world”, meaning “perfect world”). It was far from it. So why did I enjoy so much “traveling” there? The answer: I found it fascinating to be able to compare the childhood world portrayed in this book with my own. (I grew up in Germany during the 1940s and 50s, that is, during WWII and the years after the war.) Yet first and foremost, I was enchanted by this book because Linda Kohler’s brilliant writing let this mid-twentieth-century New England childhood world appear so real, with all its good and bad and in-between.
Regardless whether or not you are a fan of modern poetry, I am sure you will enjoy reading this book. It is one of those pieces of literature that will enhance your life and leave you a wiser person.
I hope Linda Kohler will continue writing. She can already take my order for any book she’ll write in the future.
Is this book even poetry? I am not an expert on genres, but labeling this book poetry seems an understatement to me. I think this book is more than poetry. Whatever it is, it is a masterpiece.
Linda Jean Kohler allows the reader into the brain of a child. And she does this better than any other author I have read before.
When reading this book, I felt like carried on wings into a small New England town as it was in the 1940s and 50s. And there, I saw with the author’s eyes what life was like at this place, at this time, and how this town's surroundings, events, and interactions between people formed the lives of all who lived there and, especially, the lives of those who grew up there.
The observations and revelations in “Be Home Before Dark” are as genuine and convincing as they could possibly be. They lead directly or indirectly, and quite often with irony, to insights that could not easily be gained otherwise, not with so few words anyway.
Even though a different genre, “Be Home Before Dark” reminds me of John Steinbeck’s classic novel “The Grapes of Wrath”. Just as Steinbeck accomplishes that the reader feels catapulted into the time and place of his reality-based fiction, so does Linda Kohler succeed in detaching the reader from the Here and Now to experience another time, another place, and make it feel so real that one might even imagine to smell the air.
No, this little town in New England was not what they call in Germany a “heile Welt” (verbally: “sane world”, meaning “perfect world”). It was far from it. So why did I enjoy so much “traveling” there? The answer: I found it fascinating to be able to compare the childhood world portrayed in this book with my own. (I grew up in Germany during the 1940s and 50s, that is, during WWII and the years after the war.) Yet first and foremost, I was enchanted by this book because Linda Kohler’s brilliant writing let this mid-twentieth-century New England childhood world appear so real, with all its good and bad and in-between.
Regardless whether or not you are a fan of modern poetry, I am sure you will enjoy reading this book. It is one of those pieces of literature that will enhance your life and leave you a wiser person.
I hope Linda Kohler will continue writing. She can already take my order for any book she’ll write in the future.
August 16, 2017
Thanks to my GR friend Lilo for her recommendation.
Kohler uses a young adolescent girl, Adie, to tell us about a small, rural Connecticut town. The time is the late 1940s and early 50s. In a series of related blank-verse poems, none much longer than a page, we slowly get a sense of the dynamics of the town, of Adie’s family and how things might change.
By using a child, Kohler allows us, in many cases, to understand more than she does. Adie repeats things that her parents or “the ladies” say and we can judge for ourselves. The town is full of gossip and Adie roams its houses, shops and fields gathering it up and trying to make sense of it all.
She respects her brother, Alan’s, intellect but doesn’t always take his advice or allow him to push her around. Her mother is prone to periods of depression and some of those keep her up in her bedroom for days at a time. Her father has fallen under the spell of the minister’s wife and Adie sometimes goes with those two and they drive out of town to carry on a pretty sordid affair.
Kohler’s storytelling often hits the right note and holds it, but there are other times where it seems a little off-key or less than satisfying. Maybe some of it is her imagery, but I find much in it that appeals. Here is an example:
“Keep an eye on the sky, closer and closer,
wider, and the clouds, even though you can’t sit on them.
There aren’t any magic carpets anymore,
The clouds are there to tell you they come
from a world much bigger than yours,
with secrets and beautiful things you couldn’t
begin to guess, and you’re part of it all.”
Overall, what we get is a patchwork quilt of the town and its folks. Tales and rumors are passed on by Adie and some seem more likely than others. It is up to the reader to fit the snippets together like pieces of a puzzle and sometimes the effort seems greater than the reward. The person we care most about is Adie and she, for the most of the arc of the plot, is just the observer.
3.5 *
Kohler uses a young adolescent girl, Adie, to tell us about a small, rural Connecticut town. The time is the late 1940s and early 50s. In a series of related blank-verse poems, none much longer than a page, we slowly get a sense of the dynamics of the town, of Adie’s family and how things might change.
By using a child, Kohler allows us, in many cases, to understand more than she does. Adie repeats things that her parents or “the ladies” say and we can judge for ourselves. The town is full of gossip and Adie roams its houses, shops and fields gathering it up and trying to make sense of it all.
She respects her brother, Alan’s, intellect but doesn’t always take his advice or allow him to push her around. Her mother is prone to periods of depression and some of those keep her up in her bedroom for days at a time. Her father has fallen under the spell of the minister’s wife and Adie sometimes goes with those two and they drive out of town to carry on a pretty sordid affair.
Kohler’s storytelling often hits the right note and holds it, but there are other times where it seems a little off-key or less than satisfying. Maybe some of it is her imagery, but I find much in it that appeals. Here is an example:
“Keep an eye on the sky, closer and closer,
wider, and the clouds, even though you can’t sit on them.
There aren’t any magic carpets anymore,
The clouds are there to tell you they come
from a world much bigger than yours,
with secrets and beautiful things you couldn’t
begin to guess, and you’re part of it all.”
Overall, what we get is a patchwork quilt of the town and its folks. Tales and rumors are passed on by Adie and some seem more likely than others. It is up to the reader to fit the snippets together like pieces of a puzzle and sometimes the effort seems greater than the reward. The person we care most about is Adie and she, for the most of the arc of the plot, is just the observer.
3.5 *
July 20, 2013
I won this book in a goodreads giveaway and I wasn't sure what to expect. I was pleasantly surprised with this very unique book. I thoroughly enjoyed every page.
July 23, 2013
My sister won this through a Goodreads giveaway. What a unique way to tell a story. I thoroughly enjoyed it
July 12, 2017
A Goodreads friend reviewed this, noting she is not a poetry fan. Well, neither am I. I think the last bit of poetry I read was a Robert Frost collection which I must admit I did enjoy. But, her review mentioned coming of age in a small New England town, an experience dear to my heart and one of my favorite subjects so I ordered it.
Passed it on to my English major sister who found it enjoyable and now that I have finished it passing it to my other sister who will probably relate to it as I did.
Not so much a narrative, as a series of sensations and vignettes. I could feel the town, picture it in my mind as my own, identify similar characters and emotions which is pretty powerful stuff.
So, a tip of the hat to a great read and thanx to my Goodreads buddy for the idea!
Passed it on to my English major sister who found it enjoyable and now that I have finished it passing it to my other sister who will probably relate to it as I did.
Not so much a narrative, as a series of sensations and vignettes. I could feel the town, picture it in my mind as my own, identify similar characters and emotions which is pretty powerful stuff.
So, a tip of the hat to a great read and thanx to my Goodreads buddy for the idea!
Want to read
November 15, 2014I have neither read nor reviewed this book. A review posted on my site was not posted by me. If I read and like this book--and it looks good--I will have something more to say than "I like."
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews