Big as Life: Three Tales for Spring

The Seasons

by Maureen Howard

The sequel to the critically acclaimed A Lover's Almanac presents three short stories of moral resonance and magical enchantment that are integrated by the feeling of regeneration that marks the coming of spring, in "Children with Matches," "The Magdalene," and "Big as A Story in Three Panels." 15,000 first printing.

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories

225 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

Maureen Howard is the author of seven novels, including Grace Abounding, Expensive Habits, and Natural History, all of which were nominated for the PEN/Faulkner Award. 'Facts of Life' is an award-winning autobiography. She is a 1952 Smith College alumnae and has taught at a number of American universities, including Columbia, Princeton, Amherst, and Yale, and was recently awarded the Academy Award in Literature by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She lives in New York City.

Reviews

[James Murphy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Big as Life: Three Tales for Spring is the 2d volume of Maureen Howard's tetralogy about the seasons. It's a volume of short stories rather than a novel. The first 2 sections, April nd May, have a feel of the Gothic--the old, deteriorating house, the girl from Ireland hired into the employ of a dysfunctional family. More, they're capsuled family sagas. The 3d section, June, is made up of 3 shorter stories whose link is John James Audubon, birds, and flowers. And, of course, the entire collection is linked by spring, birth, growth, the sense of renewal. The 2d story in the June section continues the story of Louise Moffat and Artie Freeman begun in the novel of winter, A Lover's Almanac. Most impressive about the book and about Howard is how well she can write. It's not just the beauty and music of her sentences but the ability to weave the weft of allusion, theme and idea into the warp of those sentences. Her work is difficult but it forms a sumptuous tapestry representing spring and life.

[Nathan "N.R." Gaddis]

There is a great deal to like here in its style in its form in its narrative structure. But something about the content (I guess) just didn't quite grab me along. Which is fine. Although it may have been a matter of the choice of such a small canvas for such a large subject ; perhaps squeezing these three into the shape of a novella rather than letting them sprawl over the free course of a novel is what left me wanting just a tad. But otherwise, a nice instance of the breadth that can appear within the verschrankte novella form. Recommended.

[it's a trilogy of novellas (April May June) in a quartet of Seasonal collections ; so add this to your Ali Smith reading]

[oh and Howard is pretty much BURIED, despite this Penguin]

[Celeste Barr · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think reviewer Robert Potts, for Atlantic Monthly, expressed my feelings when he wrote "Howard's style can sometimes be too elliptical for its own good", although he still found the book to be full of "subtlety and grace".
Unlike other reviewers, I did not find the 3 parts of this book, the Novellas of spring months, to be fully integrated into a whole. I didn't really find their substance connected to the months of April, May and June which they were titled.

[Carolyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved the Children with Matches story, but it wasn't quite as strong as I thought it could have been. The Magdaline was good, yet seemed a bit uncertain in places. It was an okay book. But not the best to start a year off.