Four Corners (Harvest Book);Harvest Book

by Diane Freund

"I was ten the summer we drove my mother crazy." And so starts this captivating debut novel, narrated by ten-year-old Rainey Dougherty. It's August 1953 in Four Corners, New York, when Rainey's mother is hospitalized for mental instability--or, as Rainey's father puts it, when the doctors say she needs a good long rest. Rainey and her four siblings find themselves at the mercy of Merle, their caustically funny and bitter aunt who comes up to the country from the Bronx--with her troubled fourteen-year-old daughter, Joan--to take care of that "goddamn bunch of nuts" she knows these children are. This starts a summer of enlightenment for Rainey when she learns about the realities of life through the eyes of innocence. And, though it seems strange at first, Merle's voice is the one clear note in Rainey's head as she begins a season without her mother, a season that brings both the young girls to the brink of disaster, again and again. For Rainey, it is a season that is often harro

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction

260 pages, Paperback

First published September 15, 2001

Reviews

[Robin Tuthill · Rating 4 out of 5]

A gem of a book, both in the brilliant writing and in the powerful story of a 10-year-old girl growing up in an emotionally disturbed family, in upstate New York. It does what good literature ought to: move us out of our own little worlds and into other, different worlds every bit as real and true as our's. A very sad story, but captivating to read. Wrote a review, published on LibraryThing.com.

[Diane · Rating 3 out of 5]

"These villages sagged from neglect. Their front porches drooped like the overalls of the old men who sat on them. When the men died, the women lingered on, cloistered and brittle behind their dusty drapes." This typifies the book's tone and if you don't think you can live through it, don't begin, but if you like a good story, then venture in. A good read.

[Russell Sanders · Rating 3 out of 5]

Author Diane Freund won a major award for her debut novel Four Corners. The book is beautifully written, and its characters are richly detailed. Told by ten-year-old Rainey, this is a tale of a family torn asunder by their mother’s mental breakdown. In this story set in the early 1950s, the father must care for his children while holding down a job and visiting his wife regularly, who is four hours away. And so he asks his wife’s sister Merle to come from the Bronx to stay with the children while he is working. She brings with her her fourteen-year-old daughter, a “wild child,” and eventually her alcoholic, abusive husband and their fifteen-year-old nasty, criminal son. As we listen to Merle’s verbal abuse, we realize she is just as emotionally-challenged as the children’s mother, though Merle’s miserable childhood experiences are channeled into a very unhappy woman who is trying to keep her head above water rather than succumb to the problems that send her sister to a mental hospital. Four Corners is a cautionary tale. It definitely fits into the category of “literature that holds a mirror up to us to reflect our own misgivings and lives.” And there’s the rub, for me. This is a bleak, bleak story. I kept waiting for redemption—for the cousin, the mother, Merle, Rainey. And I finished the novel still waiting. I know this was a tremendous effort for its author. It’s obvious the story and characters mean a lot to her. I won’t go so far as to speculate that she “knew” these people in her own childhood, for the book is fiction, and Freund seems to be a fine author, very capable of building this story with its delineated characters from scratch. But I can say that I finished the novel unsatisfied. As I read, I found my mind wandering and having to read passages a second time. I don’t think that is due to the author’s skills as a writer. I think it was that I simply didn’t want to live these lives along with her.

[Marcella · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wowza, this book was tragic. I think what sold me was the consistency of the little-girl logic. She's figuring out the world with the facts she has available, and it's only sad because I have so much more context than she does.

Perhaps the tragedy was laid on a bit thick at times. Luckily, I am deeply sympathetic to fictional characters and fell for it anyway.

[Judith Yeabsley · Rating 3 out of 5]

What a desperately sad tale. That may have been OK but it was also really slow. I just could not wait to finish it. I am glad I did and the attachment I felt towards the central character by the end tipped it from a 2 to a 3 stars. It wasn't that it wasn't well written it just didn't grip me ...

[Michelle · Rating 1 out of 5]

Normally I apologize if I DNF a book, but for this one it's not going to happen. I'm not a prude and I can swear like a truck driver, but I found the writing in here to be pretty vile and disgusting. I understand that it's part of the story line, but honestly did I need to read the word pussy (Not the kitty kitty meow kind or tree) 6x by the 40th page. Did I really need to read a description of the uncles stuff hanging out of his underwear down to the color, shape, and what fruit it resembled? I honestly did not think it was an integral part of the story, but if the author was shooting for vile than she hit the nail right on the head.

The story content was all over the place and jumbled. Where the point of the story was headed, I haven't a clue. To me it felt like it was going nowhere. By the 50th page I couldn't have given a damn anymore. Not one of the characters appealed to me and they all seemed to be written the same way. I didn't care by that point, but I kept reading. Not soon after I became disgusted and flung the book across the room. It's a good thing I'm able to get rid of it at paperbackswap because if no one wanted it, I was going to use the pages as liners in my daughter's rabbit cage. Crap belongs with crap!

[Liz · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is not a happy story about children dealing with their mother's mental illness. Most of the time the mother is in a mental hospital and their aunt is taking care of them. There is a lot of meanness and despair in the aunt's dealings with the children, who are living with their dad and in poverty. What is interesting about this book is the voice of the narrator, who takes on the cadences and vocabulary of whoever she is quoting (kind of like what I felt the author of Fieldwork was doing). Although the mother seems to be coming home at the end of the story, which would give the book a somewhat happy ending, the final words are ominous, and portend other awful things that may happen in the narrator's life. I think this was a very disturbing book about childhood poverty and abuse.

[Juliann · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't have the highest of expectations when I picked up this book, but I'll tell you what. I absolutely loved it! The writing is clever. The circumstances surrounding this family was certainly depressing, but I can't remember the last time a book made me laugh out loud at some of the one-liners. I'll tuck "Four Corners" back on the shelf for a re-read one of these years.
This book demands a sequel. I am disappointed to see that not only was it published over a decade ago with no sequel, but I cannot find any more published works by Diane Freund.

[Pam Oconnor · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm pretty sure I read this book before, and I did remember the characters. I reread it because I couldn't remember very much. This is a sad story about a family of children whose mother was in an insane asylum. Their aunt came to care for them, very badly I'm afraid. It is hard to read in parts. It is narrated by Rainey, who had to grow up way beyond her years. It reads like a memoir but it is fiction.

[Marguerite · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very similiar to Bastard Out Of Carolina, which to me, was a work of literature. This, not so. Too much of the author's personal angst seemed to leak through unreigned. I was not put off by the darkness of the book, but something just seemed "off". Perhaps I could not get past what seemed to be similiarities to Bastard Out Of Carolina.

[Autumn · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book...Made me physically ill to read. The storyline was good but it was full of disturbing topics. Made me angry, sad, frustrated...all at once. It is not a book I will read again.

[Demetra Adams · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dark story but I enjoyed reading it.

[Alicia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like Liar's Club - very disfunctional family in a bad situation. Manages to not be entirely depressing.

[Toesnorth's mom]

first novel, good but she must have had a horrible childhood or knew someone who had, reminds me of the Jones family but worse

[Judy · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a great surprise. Bought it at a library book sale and enjoyed the writing style. I hope she writes another book.