Northwest author Kim Barnes will read from her new novel, A COUNTRY CALLED HOME, Wednesday, Oct. 8, 7:30 pm, at Annie Bloom’s, 7834 SW Capitol Hwy , Portland.
Early praise for A COUNTRY CALLED HOME:
*"A newly married couple abandon the comfort of upper-class Connecticut and stake their claim in 1960s Fife, Idaho, in Pulitzer-finalist Barnes's exquisite novel. Thomas and Helen Deracotte—he a young, poor doctor, she a stifled, monied rebel—buy an isolated farm sight unseen and arrive to find it a shambles. Upon arriving in the inhospitable wilderness, Thomas realizes that he would rather live off the land for their daily sustenance than open his own medical practice, and he hires Manny, a handsome teenage vagabond, to help around the farm. When Helen has baby girl Elise, Manny ingratiates himself further with the Deracottes and becomes a loving caretaker. But when the new mother begins to feel suffocated and overwhelmed, she returns to her rebellious ways and finds herself powerfully attracted to Manny. Their relationship has dire consequences for all involved—particularly for Helen and Elise, but nobody gets off easy. Barnes's descriptions of the rugged landscape are vivid, and the characters' sadness and desires are revealed with wrenching detail."-Publishers Weekley (*Starred review)
*“Fiction latticed with mystery, animated by myth, spiked with menace, and rooted in the raw poetry of the Idaho landscape. . . . Barnes ascends in this incandescent novel of sacrifice and devotion, wildness and civilization. Such anguish, such beauty.” –Booklist (*Starred review)
*“Barnes's second novel radiates compassion. . . . Covering 17 years, Barnes's spellbinding story details personal tragedy and failed Sixties idealism but ends with the hope of a new generation. Highly recommended.” –Library Journal (*Starred review)
“Kim Barnes’s new novel is an exquisitely complex story, by turns pointed and poignant, about everything that matters: family, loyalty, religion, memory, love.” –Brady Udall, author of The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint
“The country through which Kim Barnes's characters travel in this novel of spiritual and emotional searching is a landscape eroded by grief and yearning and ultimately shame for our dissolution from our gods. I finished reading A Country Called Home some time ago and still cannot quite move on from the experience.” –Mark Spragg, author of An Unfinished Life
“A Country Called Home is a weave of human longings, accurate in its rendering of the ways they accumulate, always human, confounding and often heartbreaking but ultimately heartening. Give it a while, watch it come to life, and you'll find yourself rationing the pages, wishing it was longer. Kim Barnes is to be envied for her ability to open doors on the secret life of all our times.” –William Kittredge, author of The Willow Field
“A seductive book of love and obsession, Kim Barnes's new novel, A Country Called Home, explores the consequences of a man’s single-minded vision and the family made to walk the knife’s edge between control and freedom. It is an elegant work, a lyrical feast so richly imagined it feels genuinely lived. Some books are easily put down, but the best of them, like A Country Called Home, won’t let go of you.” –Claire Davis, author of Winter Range
*“Fiction latticed with mystery, animated by myth, spiked with menace, and rooted in the raw poetry of the Idaho landscape. . . . Barnes ascends in this incandescent novel of sacrifice and devotion, wildness and civilization. Such anguish, such beauty.” –Booklist (*Starred review)
*“Barnes's second novel radiates compassion. . . . Covering 17 years, Barnes's spellbinding story details personal tragedy and failed Sixties idealism but ends with the hope of a new generation. Highly recommended.” –Library Journal (*Starred review)
“Kim Barnes’s new novel is an exquisitely complex story, by turns pointed and poignant, about everything that matters: family, loyalty, religion, memory, love.” –Brady Udall, author of The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint
“The country through which Kim Barnes's characters travel in this novel of spiritual and emotional searching is a landscape eroded by grief and yearning and ultimately shame for our dissolution from our gods. I finished reading A Country Called Home some time ago and still cannot quite move on from the experience.” –Mark Spragg, author of An Unfinished Life
“A Country Called Home is a weave of human longings, accurate in its rendering of the ways they accumulate, always human, confounding and often heartbreaking but ultimately heartening. Give it a while, watch it come to life, and you'll find yourself rationing the pages, wishing it was longer. Kim Barnes is to be envied for her ability to open doors on the secret life of all our times.” –William Kittredge, author of The Willow Field
“A seductive book of love and obsession, Kim Barnes's new novel, A Country Called Home, explores the consequences of a man’s single-minded vision and the family made to walk the knife’s edge between control and freedom. It is an elegant work, a lyrical feast so richly imagined it feels genuinely lived. Some books are easily put down, but the best of them, like A Country Called Home, won’t let go of you.” –Claire Davis, author of Winter Range
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