Montana Books

I am a Nora Roberts fan and was not disappointed with the enclosed three novels. Good reading for a summer afternoon.

I did not like the story line in this Nora Roberts book. Her
J.D. Robb books are her best writing..... She should
stick to suspense, mystery and drama books.

This is good value for getting 3 Nora Roberts' books in one for readers who have the arm strength and vision power for it. As a collector of Nora Roberts and J.D. Robb books, this was great, however the font sizes of the words are terribly small. Didn't fit onto my book holder either as it was too thick. But no complains about the unabridged novels. Definite good buy for fans of Nora ROberts.

I LOVE this Irish series, it is the best! I never wanted it to end, that's the truth!

You can never go wrong with a Nora Roberts romance novel and this is just one more great one in the list.

When I first read In Open Spaces, I thought there was too much monologue, but on reflection, it was one of the best books I've read in a long time. Rowland's characters come to life in three dimensional form and I found it very difficult to put it down.

"In Open Spaces" is a lovely read and reminded me somewhat of the tales my parents told me about their own trials and tribulations in the Canadian Prairies during the depression years.

The story is told in the first person viewpoint of Blake Arbuckle as he lyrically explains his families' struggle to keep their Montana Ranch afloat through the difficult years of WWI and the "dirty thirties." The setting and the ranch are characters just as clearly defined as the members of this emotionally charged family. The story tends to be character-driven and you can't help but love some and hate others as is appropriate. At the end of the book you are ready for more about this complicated family and Blake's own tantalizing romance.

This novel hits the mark in several respects. It's a convincing coming-of-age book, a Montana Bildungsroman; it's also a wonderful evocation of a landscape and the human connection to it, and of an era. It's also a solid family saga.
The pacing is unhurried and the writing restrained---these are virtues in a book of this sort. Rowland succeeds in holding your attention from the beginning, however, not so much through a plot hook as through the creation of a sympathetic and interesting protagonist.
Anyone who's interested in well-crafted character-driven fiction should enjoy this book. It's a great beginning to what I hope will be a productive and successful career.

We enter the scene with young Blake Arbuckle getting his head bumped. Repetitively. The driver of the Model-T mail truck, Alice, is chattering away, but he is trying to sleep, his head bobbing against the hard door as he bums a ride home. The road is leading them from South Dakota to Montana, where the Arbuckle family has lived and become a part of the land and the time (1916 through 1946), in a way that most transitory contemporaries never do. For this reason alone, I found it mesmerizing to join the Arbuckle family for a few "reading" years, vicariously experiencing the sense of being rooted in the soil of a ranch that has passed from generation to generation, as much a member of the family as its human members, imbued with history and family tradition.

Living rooted to land, however, does not prevent dysfunction from entering family dynamics. Indeed, it is the reason why much of the dysfunction enters: a rivalry, an ongoing and evolving competition for who will get the ranch. How does land and home get passed on? Which child gets it and which must find another home? These are the challenges that sometimes obsess and sometimes divide the Arbuckle family. Division lines occur when one son drowns, and no one can quite explain how or why, occasional suspicions pointing to another brother; that other brother becomes a womanizer, self-centered and cruel one moment, warm the next, like a Jekyll and Hyde, veering between lies, pretending a heroism he does not embody; a third, the narrator, is something of a lifelong bachelor, looking in on the relationships of others and sometimes craving to be on the inside, but mostly content to be but an observer from a safe distance, a baseball star one moment (some of Rowland's finer descriptions happen on the baseball field), but an avowed rancher most of the next. The patriarch of the family looks on and patiently keeps his hand on the reins, retaining control in gentle and unobtrusive manner. Mother has her ways, too, nurturing relationships, watching over her brood. Sons bring home wives, and some are good women, strong and soft simultaneously, while others seduce their way into the family, manipulating and lying without conscience and keeping their eye on the prize. Love happens, not along the straight and narrow, but too often proving to be less than originally hoped. Not the least of the love stories is the one between the Arbuckles and Montana. In fact, it is the love story that rules all the others.

Rowland's debut novel is a worthy one (it was published in 2002, and has since had a continuation in the just published "The Watershed Years"). He writes with that prairie peace that conveys distress in a critical scene without melodrama, sensuality without resorting to cheap graphic descriptions, emotional exchanges without bleeding into sappiness, all the while building tension with a keen sense of balance. Like the patriarch of the Arbuckle family, the author, too, holds a gentle rein on the family and unfolding scenes, maintaining literary skill in an array of scenes that would expose a lesser writer as beginner. Rowland is not that.

A pleasing read, and one that invites the reader to anticipate Rowland's next work. The closing scene of the novel is worth the entire read - a meaningful moment between man and land, the intimate connection between the two, poetically rendered, tender, satisfying to both mind and heart.

~ Zinta Aistars for The Smoking Poet

There are so many really good authors out there --- try one of them. Like Ian McEwan, or Alice Munro, or, well....the list goes on and on and this book, and
author, isn't among them.

One of the novels featuring Montana PI C. W. Sughrue. Hired to find a wayward writer who is off on a multi-state drinking spree, Sughrue picks up an additional case to find a young woman who disappeared in San Francisco years before. He also acquires a bulldog with a taste for beer. Accompanied by the writer and the dog, he undertakes the case of the missing woman and that becomes a personal quest. It is a tangled web. Things do not always end well when you stir up the past.

The book contains earthy language, some sexual content, and some amount of violence. There is an accumulation of bodies along the way.

I've pretty much given up on trying new mystery writers, because I always wind up disappointed. There are three writers who I love -- Ross MacDonald, Raymond Chandler, and James Elroy. Everyone else I've tried is a distant fourth.

I read about James Crumley's recent passing and decided to try The Last Good Kiss, and I'm glad I did. While not in MacDonald, Chandler, and Elroy's league, Crumley comes as close as anyone I've read. He's an exceptionally skilled writer, who draws his heavily flawed characters. In structure and tone, The Last Good Kiss reminded me of Chandler's The Long Goodbye or an early Lew Archer novel. (Don't expect the dense plotting of the later Archer novels or of Elroy's LA quartet. In fact, the central mystery seems to lie in the background much of the time.)

I had just a couple quibbles. The inclusion of a violent pornography ring seemed like a forced way to inject some "drama" into the story. The Lew Archer novels quickly evolved beyond such plot devices, and were stronger for it. And I didn't always buy (or understand) the motivations of the characters. Sometimes it seemed that they did what they did simply because they lived in a noir world.

But, still, a great read and worthy of five stars.

I ordered "The Last Good Kiss" on 9/20/08. The author had recently died. It was indicated to be in stock when I ordered. It is now 10/24/08. I do not have the book yet! You know what I think of the servioce.

This book is amazing. It kept me turning the pages. Great summer read with lots of twists and surprizes. Enjoy!

I just finished John Gierach's marvelous book, "Fool's Paradise". He devotes one chapter to books he brings with him when going on a long-distance fishing trip---books that can help fill the time when stuck in the airport or at a motel when the weather precludes going outside. He mentioned reading books by James Crumley---an author I had not previously known. So, I grabbed this book, and thoroughly enjoyed it. The book has that hard-boiled, Raymmond Chandler tenor about it---alot of cursing and "tough talk", but the story was surprisingly (to me) and interestingly involved. It was a good read that kept me turning the pages at a rapid rate. I'll certainly pick up some more of Crumley's stuff. One note: Until I bought the book, I didn't realize that it was written in the late 70's, and you pick up on that as you proceed. But, I didn't find it distracting.

I found this book to be moving, englightening and wonderful! The Seven Stage approach has deep roots in the humanities and spirituality. I particularly like how he uses a Buddhist meditation to dealing with money with greater maturity. The stories of work with clients and their money issues are very engaging and instructive. And the information provided is very practical and useful. I give this work the highest rating!!

This book is perfect for anyone who needs a little grounding and inquiry around money.

Kinder offers some real insight and wisdom here, as he gently guides us into a deeper understanding of our relationship with money--and how past experiences shape our views and may limit our ability to shape our own destiny. More than a simple "how-to" handbook so often found in the financial press, this book explores our motivations and what steps we might take to fulfill our deepest goals and achieve our most profound dreams. Highly recommended!

This is strange. I rate this 5 stars despite the fact that I disagree with a great deal of what the author says and that he cloaks some of his good ideas in a new-age nonsense framework about chakras and such.
What is so good about the book? It is truly a novel approach to integrate spirituality and meaning into money management. Just by considering some interesting questions posed to the reader in the book, insights are possible that one would not have thought about. I have training as a counsellor and have read extensively about money management, yet I have never been asked to think about issues in this book such as the role of early life exteriences in shaping out unconscious biases and assumptions about the role of money in our lives.
Try reading this book. And do the exercises in it.

I do like the approach of money as a journey rather than the books that ask you to look for your money personality and seek to put you in a category. They will change if you are growing and changing and isn't that the point?
I particularly was moved by his description of his childhood awareness that some of us have more than others and how that leads to the end of innocence..along with the description of the time his parents taught him gratitude about the flute he was given as a gift.

This was written in the early 80's when subjects like child abuse were hugely ignored. Meet Burke, ex-con, criminal, gambler, scam artist and private investigator. He takes cases that cops and most other private eye's will not touch. If he takes the case at all. Burke is suspicious of everyone except his close-knit adoptive family: Max the Silent: a deaf, mute, silent Mongolian martial artist, Michelle: a Transvestite hooker, Mole: a genius inventor who runs a junk yard packed with vicious dogs, The Prof: a brilliant philosopher street criminal. Mama: the Chinese restaurant owner and racketeer. Pansy: Burke's mastiff with a personality of its own. Burke drives a souped up performance car, given to him by a former client. The car looks like a beater, but is a small tank that out-races a sports car. One day, a woman named Flood approaches Burke to find the killer of her friend's baby. Burke takes the case which takes him through the world of pimps, prostitutes and mercenaries. Because of his criminal background, Burke is able to enter doors where the normal citizens or police cannot...do not want to go. Eventually, Burke lures the baby killer into a trap, where his client, Flood, challenges the killer to a death match. Good fight scenes. I liked the short paragraph writing style and the social commentary about child abuse, human traffickers, drugs and the criminal justice system.

WARNING: contains spoilers

This is the first Andrew Vachss novel I have read. Everyone seemed to rave about the Burke series novels. I did enjoy the book, however, Burke is nothing more than a sociopath. He seems a bit paranoid. I think the ending with the pimp was a little bit stupid. Once the Cobra was dead the book should have ended. Could you imagine if he was a real person, and was trying to get a job. He'd first cut the lights and the security system. Then he and his crew would come in through the window and attack the interviewer and tie him up, and then well I think he probably would not get the job. Anyway the book was ok, and I will read the next one in the series to see what that one is like.

Vachss stories always seem to have potential but in the end turn out to be cliched and corny. He puts an interesting mix of characters in his books however they come off as cardboard cutouts. He also has the habit of taking the safest politically correct route by making the villians Nazi pedophiles. Wow your really going out on a limb there eh Vachss? His writing has always seemed to be better suited for comics, but even those ventures turned out to be disappointments.

This is dark stuff bigtime, but so well done and entertaining. Plus, you learn a lot about some unfortunate things that happen throughout our society.

This is not Vach's first book. There is an even earlier book out there that was never published! If you go to Vach's website, he has on there his first unpublished book that tells the story of Wesley. It is equally amazing as the rest of the Burke series. I just read it and it cleared up quit a bit for me. I suggest everyone else to give it a try.

This book is more than what was expected. All the reviews are right-on; this book will give you life-changing concepts. It's easy to read and it makes sense. Love it!

Anyone who has "trust" issues, and you may not even know it, until you begin reading this book, has to have it
It is a complete, step by step, soft, yet direct introduction to cleaning out the garbage of life that weighs you down
It opens the door to a comfortable future without pain
Great read

Simplistic but an ok entree to the subject. To anyone who is beyond a bare bones beginner, keep looking.

Gerald Jampolsky has taken the concepts from A Course in Miracles and translated them into easy-to-understand lessons. In Love is Letting Go of Fear, he encourages us to focus on love, not fear.

He provides 12 lessons for personal transformation, such as:
#3 - I am never upset for the reason I think
#6 - I am not the victim of the world I see
#7 - Today I will judge nothing that occurs
#12 - I am responsible for what I see

This book is an international bestseller that is easy to read and which contains principles that are easy to follow.

Anyone looking for reminders from the more scholarly Course in Miracles, will find this book a joy to read.

I think this is a great book. I'm a little better person every time I read it.

This was a very interesting and relaxing book to read, a very good story line that kept my interest from the very beginning to end.

For a fiction on the chaste Amish, this book was filled with suspense, conflict, and longing! Very well written.
Couldn't wait to turn every page and will be reading the rest of this series.

This is a wonderful book. I loved reading about the Old Order Amish and was quite shocked at some of tehe customs.

The story is of the Ebersole family and thier 4 girls. The oldest Sadie is having her time of freedom and courting where she can even mied with the English. And mix she does.

Soon she has a dark secret that only is shared by her sister Leah. Secrets kept like this have dire results.
You will cry with these sisters as they live out Sadies mistakes. Leah will pay a high price also being party to the secret.

Once you read this first book you will be ordering the rest. I am now on book 3 and loving it just as much. Great series. Fast reading books.

I LOVE this series of books! I'm on book 3 now, but read books 1 and 2 in three days!! I can't put these books down. Such great reading and I'm looking forward to all of Ms. Lewis's books. Trust me on this: you won't be disappointed!!!!!

The Covenant is the very first in a series of Abram's daughters. This first book focuses on the 2 older sisters, Sadie, and Leah Ebersol. The other 2 youngest of the group are Mary Ruth, and Hannah.

Sadie is a very rebellious soul, and does not obey the strict Amish rules at all, while Leah is the obedient one, always working out in the fields beside her dad, she is her Dad's right arm. Sadie on top of being rebellious, is into her rumpschringe period, referred to as that time when these Amish children are allowed to go out and explore the worldly ways within limits of course. But Sadie meets an Englisher, Derek, whose father is the town doctor there in Lancaster. This is forbidden naturally, but Sadie sneaks out to meet Derek all the time, and the two become intimately involved. Her parents have really no idea what she is up to most nights, and Leah knows something is up, but Sadie keeps it secret from her sister. Sadie turns up pregnant much to her horrow, and hides it for a very long time as she sews dresses to hide her growing figure all the months she is carrying Derek's child. Sadie knew she had to confront him with this, and sure enough when she tells him of this horrible dilemma, he walks away from it and goes off to join the service. Heartbroken, Sadie is beside herself all the time. When it comes time to have this child, her parents still have not figured it out, though she finally did tell Leah some time before, making her swear not to tell their parents or anyone else. So Leah is there to help her when the time comes, and Lizzie, their mother's sister is the one who gets help for Sadie when the child is on the way. And the doctor to come, is none other than Derek's father, who knew something was up as Sadies had gone to their home to reach Derek crying, telling him the news. Derek's father suddenly knew what happened that night when he delivered the infant, who appeared dead at birth. So when the doctor takes the baby along for a proper burial, the child is discovered to be alive, and the doctor is not sure he wants to let Sadie know, but instead, keep this a secret in order to keep Sadie from being disgraced by her family. Whether this child living ever comes to Sadie's and her whole family's and everyone's attention remains to be seen in the books to come.

Leah is in love with Jona, and yet her dad wants her to be in love with and marry the Smithy's son, Gideon Peachey. But Leah cannot make up something her dad wants her to feel that she can't feel. And as time goes along, she and Jona fall more deeply in love.

The time comes for Jona to go away and work in Ohio for a time of about 9 months or so, and Leah isn't sure she'll survive without him. This storyline continues throughout the upcoming book of The Betrayal.

This book is fast moving and hard to put down. I thoroughly have enjoyed all of Lewis's writings.

As many books this one has everything you'd like to read in a paranormal book. The problem is the end of it because you'll wait for the punch line and it'll never come. So you if you read the book don't expect more than a so so end.

I agree with the readers who complained about the ? marks instead of proper punctuation and the many "wannas" and "gonnas." They make what is a slight story to begin with an annoyance to follow. The premise is interesting, which is why I picked up the book in the first place, but the execution is sloppy and in great need of a good editor and proofreader - especially the editor. One would hope that future books in the series will be more carefully tended to, since the book seems to have an enthusiastic following already. Nicki is a charismatic character, though not developed enough for my taste. That will change in future episodes, one hopes. However, I would classify this book more as YA than as adult fiction.

I like the paranormal romances and though that this would be a good read. I was right. Nikki Styx has a close call and dies but is revived. When she comes to, she can see dead people. After a little bit of denial, she decides that the best way is to help them and get them to go into the light.

Then she sees her best friend, dead, and learns that the boyfriend did it. Nikki doesn't believe the boyfriend could do suck a think and gets sucked into a world of voodoo and evil spirits from there.

I really like the banter between the characters and the humor to death in itself. I would recommend this book to everyone to read and cannot wait to read Match Made in Hell.

I read this on my Kindle. For some reason? many of the commas are replaced by question marks? in the Kindle version. This is quite distracting. Please edit the Kindle version.

That said, this was a quick, fun read. I will read the next book in the series.

What do you get when you take a quirky, fashion-conscious goth girl, a near death experience, a hunky ER doctor & add a mixed bag of ghostly visitors? You get Terri Garey's hilariously funny first novel, Dead Girls are Easy. When you read this book, you'd never think this was Ms. Garey's first foray into the paranormal fantasy & romance world. In Nicki Styx, she has created a wonderful, warm & wacky heroine. Nicki has a congenital problem that leads to just plain weird problems. Nicki's heart has a problem that brings her literally to Death's Door & the White Light. However, Nicki get's sent back with a purpose. Do unto others....The problem becomes "the others" she has to help; she must help ghosts with issues that attach them to this mortal coil, still, so they can pass on to The Light.
Nicki has some grudging helpers in this new world of Ghostly Counseling & Errand Running. She met the gorgeous, boy-next-door adorable Dr. Joe Bascombe in the ER. He proves to be indispensable to Nicki, in efforts to rid herself of malicious, Voodoo practicing ghosts, & in the romantic realm, too. Nicki also has a best friend with too much fashion sense for one man, who co-owns a vintage clothing shop with Nicki. Evan & his boyfriend, Butch, provide emotional support & a running peanut gallery commentary on Nicki's new status as Ghost Greeter.
We met Nicki & her ragtag motley crew in the ER, after a nearly fatal heart failure. Things quickly become complicated for Nicki when she realizes that the ghostly visitors she's receiving are not the result of medications, but real not-so-flesh & blood ghostly apparitions. Once she is back home, Nicki runs into an old friend who has met a bad end. Sadly, for Nicki, the friend was also a practicing Voodoo Queen in the back room of her little shop across the way from Nicki & Evan's store. Nicki finds herself in the unenviable position of trying to get back to "normal", save herself & Evan from the Voodoo machinations of her former friend, & light the fires of romance with Dr. Joe.
For fans of Sherrilyn Kenyon, or Laurell K. Hamilton, this book will fit right in on your book shelf. Ms. Garey penned a fast paced, funny, eccentric novel. The dialog is snappy & quick-witted. The characters are definitely individuals; no cookie-cutter heroines & heroes, here. And the plot is twisty & fun. As with any first book in a series, there is a certain amount of set up to be handled, & Ms. Garey has blended this into her storyline nicely, so it does not detract from the immediate tale, yet informs you along the way. If this book had a musical theme, it would be an interesting, individual piece of music with definite industrial, goth overtones, but with a nice, bouncy, jazzy feel underlying the melody.
Kudos to Ms. Garey for a fantastic first book. The RITA nominations for Best First Novel & Best Paranormal Romance are well deserved.

have not got into this series at all, still a good book but at times abit slow

This book was brain candy. It was well paced and just interesting enough to keep you going, but didn't require any effort to read. There were weak moments and moments of serious eye rolling (the over use of poetic quotes for example became tedious and lost impact). The character, Braden, the male lead was well done. He was the best developed and the only really developed character in the book. His handicap was a bit of a twist right off the bat. It was slid in so easily that I found myself stopping and going, "What? He's what?" and flipping back a few pages to review. The weaknesses she "tells" us about in Braden, would have been better "shown." But still he is the most interesting of the characters in this book. The female lead, Cassidy Holt, is over the top naive and innocent... and sorry, but no girl from the old west who hearded cattle and worked a ranch is this innocent and naive.

The biggest complaint in this is that it is the pinnacle scenes for a romance novel (nudge, nudge) that fall absolutely flat. The romantic tension is done well as it builds, but during the culminating moment, the writer's cliched and even down right silly analogies and vocabulary pulled me out of the moment and hand me giggling. One can use petals as a simile as in "soft as a petal," but one should never use "petals" as a euphemism for a body part. It is simply silly.

All in all it's a nice pleasant read. A nice curl on the couch with a cup of tea or coffee and forget about the outside world book.

I can't give a rounded synopsis of this book because I only made it half way through. The book itself has a good premise, but the characters lack dimension and depth.

Cassidy has hidden strengths and a certain amount of vulnerability that at first endeared her to me. However, by the middle of the book, she hadn't grown up or expanded her personality.

I'm a huge fan of the Laurel K Hamiltons/Katy McAllistars of the world and between books I go exploring for new Authors. I'm sorry to say Susan Krinard doesn't make my list as a must read.

For the most part, I really enjoyed this book. Krinard makes werewolves real and serves up emotional tension with a backhoe. Braden is a complex hero, and not always heroic, but he recognizes his errors and grows as a character. Cassidy remains somewhat innocent throughout the book, but that's part of what appeals to Braden; plus, the hurt and betrayal that strike at her innocence are beautifully rendered, making the reader hurt, too. Her need to be belong is palpable. You can feel the heightened tension when the werewolves are together and challenging each other. There are moments when the book falters (for example, Bredan's fall into his grandfather's outlook and behavior is never fully explained), but it serves as a thorough introduction to the Forster family. The love scenes are the weakest part, and Krinard's euphemisms are so laughable as to almost be more uncomfortable than crass words. Sometimes the exposition is too long or slow, but once the action begins, it moves with good speed.

TOUCH OF THE WOLF is a pedestrian effort. The story - about an American werewolf who goes to England to find her family - is choppy, with holes here and there in the plot, quotes way too much poetry, and is cast with characters who aren't that interesting. The heroine, Cassidy, is not very endearing - she's irritatingly naïve (my eyeballs are rolling right now) and is way too desperate to find love. She also fixates on Braden right from the start, though I don't know why exactly, other than he is the first werewolf she meets. I thought Braden was more flushed out a character than Cassidy or his two siblings. His handicap was promising, though there seemed to be a lot of moments in the book where, superhuman senses aside, the author seemed to forget he WAS handicapped. The story also seemed to suffer from moody melodrama and a need to make a secret out of EVERYTHING. I understand that TOUCH OF THE WOLF is the first of a trilogy, the other two books following the stories of Braden's siblings (an annoying ice queen named Rowena and a cowardly trickster named Quentin). I'm not quite sure I want to bother with their stories. The reason I read TOUCH OF THE WOLF is because I adored TO CATCH A WOLF, which is about Cassidy's brother, Morgan. I'm pretty disappointed that Cassidy's story was so dopey. Oh well.

Update as of Jan 4, 2005: I just read a young adult novel called BLOOD AND CHOCOLATE that dealt with many of the same topics as TOUCH OF THE WOLF, including real-life issues such as fitting in, dealing with the loss of family, etc., as well as werewolf issues like determining the leader of the pack and the rules associated with breeding/mating. I have to say the teen book, BLOOD AND CHOCOLATE, was a lot more sophisticated than TOUCH OF THE WOLF in every respect and was a much more engaging read. BLOOD AND CHOCOLATE was shorter and set in modern times with a angst-filled heroine and, while it didn't have the full-blown love scenes found in a romance novel, it had a sexually-tense love triangle that was fun and exciting to read about.

To fully appreciate Raymond Carver stories, you need to want and be able to steep your thoughts into his stories. They aren't cut and dried; his stories focus on conversation and meaning. And like any great short story, a second reading is essential, as you want to grasp it all without missing pieces to the puzzle. At times you may remain baffled at the end, wondering "what did I miss here". With Carver's other stories, a mysterious feeling floats throughout, as we delve into the mind of the characters, reading them, connecting to them, hating, losing, and loving, mending, changing, etc.

Carver's stories are a slice of Americana, and very often the characters experience pain, suffering, indulgence, insecurities, hope, despair, happiness, etc. etc. In this collection, they represent vendors, teachers, bakers, parents, alcoholics, farmers, landlords, chimney sweeps, etc. Often, we don't know what year it is, the location, ages, descriptions. Carver's characters are timeless, as he wants you to take the characters and settings wherever your mind travels. It is often challenging to search the phrase in the story that becomes the title, or why did Carver choose that title.

It's clear a couple of the gems here are "A Small Good Thing" reveals the state of miscommunication, tragedy and a laborious job of a baker. "Cathedral" reveals our fears and alienation to the unknown, in this case, of a blind man. A few other exceptional ones are "The Compartment" a train trip to Paris and its trivialities become the vehicle for a man unable to understand how he will greet his son, a young student he hasn't seen or communicated with in eight years. Their last encounter was a physical fight. This one is about a loss that, to me, that never will be found.

You can always connect with someone in the stories, whether it's physical or emotional, and if you are a loving parent struggling to find good childcare, "Fever" will touch you. If you haven't had a taste of a drying out facility, you will be intrigued by the inner demons of the patients in "Where I'm Calling From". "Careful" is another that revolves simply around conversation.

"Preservation" is the unfortunate unemployment and a broken refrigerator that sparks something else. Like "Cathedral", "Feathers" is a setting with friends visiting; it is that adept skill Carver possesses, conversation and dialogue. "Chef's House" reveals our hopes and dreams and then to have them shattered. Others include: "Vitamins", "The Bridle", and "The Train".

If you want to know who Raymond Carver is, his thoughts, writings, friends, family, colleagues, etc. Conversations with Raymond Carver (Literary Conversations Series)....Marrianne Rizzuto

In a sense the book can be divided into thirds- four great tales, four solid-good tales, and four tales that needed work. In short, this is very reflective of RC as a writer. He is not the total snooze his worst detractors describe nor is he an unrivaled Modern Master as his boosters claim. He is, however, a good writer overall. What he might have achieved had he not pickled his brain with alcohol, nor died young, is unknown. He could have wasted his talents, or pushed them to greater heights.

In a sense nothing much happens to RC's characters, but how they react to such inaction is where the tales get their heft and weight. Failure in their realm is not necessarily failure to RC. But, it's no guarantee that it's a triumph, either. Sometimes a reader will not know whether an RC tale will succeed or fail until the tale is over because he can rescue a seemingly off-course story in a paragraph or two, and a character by a single detail.

His characters can be notable not for what they do but how they do it- by striking familiar chords with readers who are attracted and repulsed by aspects of their worst selves. In the four best tales- The Compartment, A Small, Good Thing, Fever, and Cathedral- RC's ability to navigate a reader through potential narrative dry spots is rewarded by the way each story ends, set up by the sometimes spare, sometimes detailed characterizations.
At his worst RC can bore a reader, and leave them wondering what the hell the story was all about? But, at his best RC's tales are like those old family photos you flip through, years after the familiar faces have lost their name, but none of their ability to move. It's in the lacuna between name and motion RC touches greatness. Would that such absences were more abundant in his and others' works.

Even Carver's least successful stories tap something essential and true that many writers spend a lifetime trying to reach once or twice. Stories in this collection like "A Small, Good Thing" and "Cathedral" are among the very best in literature. They are the ultimate in showing rather than telling, tapping emotion in unexpected ways just by showing us the way people live their lives. Sometimes they are faced with life-changing events, but more often they are just making their way from morning to night in their various desperate and oblivious ways. Carver says less about those lives than other authors would -- but, in doing so, he allows them to appear to speak for themselves. The result is often unbearably moving.

If What We Talk About When We Talk About Love was a collection full of characters in the middle of losing it all, then Cathedral is a collection full of characters trying to get it all back, trying to salvage relationships of all types: marital ("Chef's House"), paternal ("The Compartment"), and edible ("Preservation"). Though, how hard the characters in the stories are trying is questionable, and the characters themselves might not even know. Somehow, Carver works that sort of angle wonderfully. It's a rare thing to read a story like "Preservation", where the outcome is two characters defeated, yes, but stuck in the sort of lockdown where their lack of comprehension doesn't hinder the reader's ability to understand the situation. Carver makes questions appear in boldface before answering them with another question: what now?

This collection doesn't necessarily move away from loss and focus completely on the upward hook of salvation, however. There's a "what now?" in all of these stories, but we still see Carver's characters lose and lose big time. We see tangible things taken away: a watch, a child, a wife, a refrigerator full of food, a borrowed house, etc. There's also the main losses found in most of Carver's stories: love, joy, and hope. The characters found here are just as hapless as any of his others (pick your favorite, they're all over the place. I've always had a soft spot for the boy in "Nobody Said Anything" and the man from "Viewfinder"). Carver's a f****** desolate dude, but he's learned to cope with this batch of stories. His characters learn. Not to discredit "Why Don't You Dance?", as I find it to be perfect story, but if it had appeared in Cathedral, I would assume that it wouldn't have shifted to the view of the couple at the end. We would have followed the man back into his house and watched his next move (or at least a hint of his next move). There wouldn't exactly be a lesson, but there would be something learned regardless (or at least the hint of something learned, something that indicates a conscious change). There would be a life beyond depression and drinking.

I don't think this is a perfect collection. I think it is flawed in the sense that some of the stories drag and a couple of them just aren't that good. A great writer like Carver can make dog s*** look like diamonds, but the smell gives it away. He dresses up "Careful" in his trademark shell, letting dialogue and setting tell the story of the failed marriage, the drinking problem, the dimwitted cry for help. It doesn't really do much, though. The story works, don't get me wrong. The ex-wife cleaning the ear to make him hear again -- to make things make sense again -- it functions. The dialogue is as great as always and the apartment comes across as a barren wasteland with hidden bottles of champagne scattered throughout it. Still, though, it ain't a diamond, and the stink of dog s*** is all over it. It's just not very interesting. I'll say the same thing about "The Train", as I picture it to be some sort of scene from an independent/foreign film where nothing happens except minor confusion and everyone thinks it's fantastic. "The Compartment" is a bit bland, and while I've heard that Carver sounds like every other American writing about being an American overseas, that's not even a problem compared to the fact that the same story could have been told in about half the time, assuming that Carver can stretch time in the span of a few pages and in such a way that we feel as if we've waited and pondered with the character for the hours he's spent waiting and pondering. The stories found within the prose stick to my ribs because of the skill used to write them, but I can't say they were very enjoyable to read and I can't say I care about them or the people in them.

That said, this collection contains some of Carver's best work. "Feathers" is a beautiful story (though it is, along with "A Small, Good Thing", guilty of dragging a bit) with a flash-forward at the end that encompasses all of the heartbreak that can be found in everyday life. It focuses on the unraveling point within the tedium of existence, proof that life does not often change in a grand sweeping story as found in a lot of literature, but as the effect of a dinner and a peacock. "Chef's House" is the shortest story in the book, and its eight pages do what "Careful" couldn't: give us the seed of a saved relationship and its inevitable destruction. "Preservation" didn't grab me at first, but the wife and the husband play off each other so well, that I can't help but feel the end somewhere between her ambition and hope and his complete lack of either. I melt with the food on the table. "A Small, Good Thing" has been anthologized a bunch, I'm sure, and with good reason: it's a kick *** story. As I mentioned, it drags a bit, and the half before the child's death could be trimmed. However, the story is so thick with metaphor and genuine sadness that it ranks among the classics. "Where I'm Calling From" is THE story when it comes to Carver and alcohol, and he tackles more than just the characters' demons from within the treatment center. For as much writing as he's done about drinking, "Where I'm Calling From" gives us the full spectrum, from the initial build to alcoholism to perhaps his most triumphant presentation of the "What now?" question. I'm still working "The Bridle" through in my head, but I have a feeling it's great. As for "Cathedral", it gets none more sweet than the final gift of clarity, the hover and ascent of a calming.

With the success of the longer stories in this collection, "Feathers" (24 pages), "A Small, Good Thing" (32 pages), "Where I'm Calling From" (20 pages), and "Cathedral" (19 pages), it makes me wonder about Gordon Lish's influence (or lack of, in this case) upon Carver's work. I've read articles about the Lish/Carver relationship, and it's disintegration around the time of the Cathedral stories is interesting for two reasons: 1) Carver gained a new confidence from both his success (owed in large part to Lish's desire for terseness and tightness) and (I'm assuming) the encouragement of Tess Gallagher. Carver believed in these stories as they stood, making his own decisions as far as the content as important a matter of life and death. 2) Carver may have been interested in the long form (novella/novel). There are rumors of an abandoned Carver novel (aside from the one found in "No Heroics, Please"), something I wouldn't think he'd tackle until he was severed from Lish. Of course, Carver believed the short story to stand on its own as more than just a primer for a novel (a shame he's in the minority, as I feel he'll eventually be forgotten as one of the great American writers of all time due to his never writing a 90+ page piece of fiction), but the fact that he considered the idea gives these longer stories a different perspective. Would Carver be able to sustain interesting and effective prose over the course of an entire novella/novel? Would the absence of Lish be detrimental to the success of the long work? Were these longer stories unconscious practice for a novel/novella?

Of course, these are all moot and unanswerable questions. The real focus here is the same as it always was, regardless of Lish. Carver pinpoints a moment in someone's life - just a moment, nothing special - and reveals it as the moment when everything changed. He is a true fiction writer, a writer who was able to find the seed of truth within the shell of a false reality. This particular collection finds Carver in search of the love, joy, and hope his characters have previously lost. This is redemption.

I read some of the stories in Cathedral during my undergraduate years, and upon my recent re-reading of the entire short story collection, I realize now how little I understood Raymond Carver's work back then. I have since read nearly all of Carver's stories, which, collectively, have come to represent a revival of the short story during the 1980s. Arguably, the short story has since fallen away again, but looking back at Carver gives me hope for the genre, that new work can still be done.

I have most often heard Carver's stories described as minimalist, short punctuations of reality, stripped of all ornament, so that only the meat and bones of the narrative remain. At the risk of mixing metaphors, Carver boils away and/or dissolves whatever can be left out or hidden. He cuts, cuts, and cuts some more. When you do that to your own writing, you can carve through all of your unnecessary words and see the true meaning - or so the theory of minimalism goes.

The world in Carver's Cathedral at times portrays among the starkest realities I can imagine. In his darker stories, like "Feathers," "The Compartment," and "The Train," Carver's characters are not human beings reduced to animals, but rather humans unveiled: We talk, move, drink, smoke, eat, love, dread, dream, and die. So much of our lives exists inside our heads, and I think Carver reveals what little we actually do in the world and how much we think and keep to ourselves. The result, in the majority of Cathedral, is a world fraught with miscommunication and terrible relationships. But Carver plows ahead into the depths of dark narratives bravely. He brings us along as if to show us, for the first time, what a dead body looks and smells like, and we know he isn't lying.

But then, in the middle of the collection, Carver takes a very small turn. He doesn't give up hopelessness entirely, but his characters seem to salvage some kind of rectitude in the larger waste of their lives in stories like "A Good, Small Thing," "Fever," and the title story, "Cathedral." These stories seem to me more mature and better crafted, because the endings aren't committed exclusively to happiness or dread, but rather to intellectual clarification of a profound moment in a character's life.

There's a reason why "Cathedral" is often anthologized among other great and representative stories. In the story, Carver portrays a sense of humor and irony that isn't as developed in the rest of the collection. The mythic quality of the story gives the reader a spiritual glimpse into what is otherwise mundane. We make beauty, the story seems to say.

What I like best about Carver's stories is his attention to only the essential. He doesn't have to provide a long description of the setting and time, because it's our time, our setting. We already know where we are in his stories, and we look to him to remind us where we are going.