Sing Them Home
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Everyone in Emlyn Springs, Nebraska, knows the story of Hope Jones, the physician’s wife whose big dreams for their tiny town were lost along with her in the tornado of 1978. For Hope’s three children, the stability of life with their distant, preoccupied father, and with Viney, their mother’s spitfire best friend, is no match for their mother’s absence. Once grown up, Larken, the eldest child, an art history professor, seeks in food an answer to a less tangible hunger; Gaelan, the only son, is a telegenic weatherman who devotes his life to predicting the unpredictable; and Bonnie, the baby of the family, is a self-proclaimed archivist who combs the roadside for clues to her mother’s legacy and permission to move on. When, decades after their mother’s disappearance, the siblings are summoned home after their father’s sudden death, they are forced to revisit the childhood tragedy at the centre of their lives.
With breathtaking lyricism, wisdom and humour, Stephanie Kallos explores the consequences of protecting the ones we love and conjures an extraordinary cast of characters teeming with quirks, blind spots and secrets. Sing Them Home is a magnificent tapestry of lives connected and undone by tragedy, lives poised—unbeknownst to the characters themselves—for redemption.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Kallos's (Broken for You) enthralling second novel takes the reader by storm as Hope Jones, Nebraska mother of three, is whisked away by a 1978 tornado, her body never found. The novel opens 25 years later, when Hope's children grown but not grown up gather for their father's funeral after he's killed by a lightning strike. Llewelyn's death is one of many quandaries haunting his children: daughter Larken, an overweight professor beset by fear of flying; son Gaelan, a television weatherman with too many women in his life; and the youngest, Bonnie, who stays in Emlyn Springs working odd jobs. Alvina "Viney" Closs, Hope's best friend, also has issues to resolve. Themes of family bonds and conflicts, secrets and sorrows also marked Kallos's debut, and this time she weaves in an idiosyncratic view of the role of the dead in the lives of the living, sharp takes on business, academic and sexual politics, and a palpable empathy for small Midwestern towns. This novel will find a welcome audience in anyone who has experienced grief, struggled with family ties or, most importantly, appreciates blossoming talent.
