The Excellent Lombards

Starred review from February 15, 2016
A Wisconsin girl reluctantly comes of age in Hamilton's tender and rueful latest (Laura Rider's Masterpiece, 2009, etc.). A suspenseful opening chapter, with the Lombards racing to get their freshly baled hay into the barn before the clouds overhead let loose the rain that would ruin it, deftly sets the scene for the fraught family drama that follows. Narrator Mary Frances--alternately known as Francie, Frankie, Marlene, or MF depending on who's addressing her and what stage of her tumultuous development she's at--has total confidence in her father's ability to grapple antiquated farm equipment and "outwit a storm." Her adored older brother, William, has less faith and more awareness of the harsh realities facing their Wisconsin apple orchard at the turn of the 21st century. Their father Jim's health has been battered by years of manual labor; his cousin and co-owner, Sherwood, is dreamy and impractical. Sherwood's wife, Dolly, incessantly reminds their children of the better life that awaits them with a college degree. Jim's wife, Nellie, a sharp-tongued librarian who's seen her modest inheritance swallowed up by the orchard, does her best to point William and Francie in the same direction, only to outrage the daughter who desperately insists that she's going to stay put and make sure the orchard goes on just as it has for four generations. The story unfolds as a series of snapshots, discontinuous and tumbled together in an order that follows the emotional logic of memories. A geography bee that Francie deliberately loses, a snooping expedition that results in her getting locked in the room of an eccentric older relative, and the wrenching loss of a beloved hired hand who is more like a second mother are among the incidents that chronicle Francie's bumpy progress toward maturity, which she resists almost as fiercely as the knowledge that the way of life embodied in her beloved orchard is slowly vanishing. Richly characterized, beautifully written, and heartbreakingly poignant--another winner from this talented and popular author.

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November 1, 2015

Hellenga wins committed fans with intelligent, emotionally grounded novels like The Confessions of Frances Godwin; as the LJ review said, "He deserves to be more widely known." This collection ranges widely, with the title novella summing up the mood: undertaker Simon embalms his father, while contemplating his own death; his mother says good-bye to her husband in the basement cooler; and the dog, Maya, a sensitive greeter at the funeral home, communicates some important truths to Simon's wife.

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from February 15, 2016
Hamilton has anchored her writing life to her family's Wisconsin apple orchard, and in her warm, funny, and incisive seventh novel, she creates a veritable cosmos out of a Wisconsin family farm, from its fields to its apple trees, lambs, woods, marsh, and ramshackle houses and barns. The Lombards, a colorful, dissonant clan of cousins, are seen through the omnivorous eyes of young Frankie (Mary Frances), a fourth-generation Lombard so enchanted by their land and way of life, so adoring of her brother and father, she plans on dwelling in this humble paradise forever. Yet she knows that conflicts roil between households and that money is tight; she is terrified of the forbidding elder, May Hill, and she battles over her future with her tart-tongued mother, proud director of the town's library, a portal to the larger world. As Frankie vividly recounts the story of her blissful, sporadically traumatic, often-hilarious coming-of-age, Hamilton neatly tags the shaping forces of the 1990s, from suburban sprawl devouring farmland to the dawn of video gaming, and renders the precarious Lombard kingdom mythic with the smothering labyrinth of May Hill's hoarded treasures and the sanctuary of the trees. Hamilton's lushly pleasurable novel of radiant comedy, deep emotions, and resonant realizations considers the wonders of nature, the boon and burden of inheritance, and the blossoming of the self. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Hamilton is a library and book-group favorite, and this bright, wise family portrait is sparking great excitement, supported by a strong promotion plan and schedule of personal appearances.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)