Rowing in Eden
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $15.99
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
ROWING IN EDENSam is not the only tormented soul in the tiny upstate village of Old Wickham. There's also Peter Quinn, a brilliant, troubled fourteen-year-old with quick fists, no past, and a truckload of attitude. Although a judge found him innocent, Peter knows better. Some things, he figures, "it don't matter why you did 'em, only that you did 'em."
On its surface, Old Wickham, New York, is a Norman Rockwell montage of red-cheeked youngsters skating on ponds, dogs frolicking in the snow, and villagers huddled around wood-burning stoves. Yet someone in this idyllic community has been setting fires. Suspicions divide the village along the usual fault lines. Scapegoats are sought, outsiders shunned. The back room of the country store gives rise to a Greek chorus of collective rage. In this crucible of distrust, unlooked for alliances are forged, old alliances are tested, and no one emerges unchanged.
Alice Hoffman hails Barbara Rogan as a "masterful story teller." The New York Times praises her as a passionate writer whose prose is "as vivid as lightning bolts." Now, with Rowing in Eden, a morally complex story about friendship, love, marriage, and family -- in other words, all the things that matter most -- Barbara Rogan not only fulfills but generously exceeds the expectations of fans and reviewers alike.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Cancer-ravaged Louise Pollak dies wordlessly on the first page of Rogan's fifth book, her demise facilitated by her loving husband, Sam. She is nonetheless heard loud and clear to the last page of this romance-cum-morality tale. Her voice is kept alive by messengers to the Pollaks' farmhouse in the upstate New York town of Old Wickham. The first such messengers to arrive, moments after Lou's death, are gutsy urban transplant Jane Goncalves and Peter, her bristly but appealing 14-year-old foster son. Jane works at the local bookshop, and she has brought a book that Lou had ordered-Emily Dickinson's poems. There Sam finds what he believes to be Lou's parting message. "Rowing in Eden!/ Ah, the Sea!/ Might I but moor/ Tonight in thee!" We feel Sam's hopeless longing, but we know the messenger is also a message from Lou; inevitably, Sam will want to moor in Jane-and his wife would cheer him on. Just as surely, he will have to save a life to pay the karmic debt incurred by killing Lou, no matter that she'd made him promise to do so. Rogan (A Heartbeat Away) delivers action and subplot. Jane has two other foster kids besides Peter; and when arson strikes their home, it's a good bet the blaze is a reflection of how heartily they're unwelcome by the clannish villagers of Old Wickam. Unfortunately, Lou is the one character who really talks; the rest send telegrams. Among the blatant (and stereotyped) messengers: Malachi, the kvetchy mystical defrocked rabbi; Portia, the streetwise black social worker; and Moses the Mutt, who leads Sam to the Promised Land.
