Customer Reviews

Burning Marguerite

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Already a master of the short story, Elizabeth Inness-Brown now proves herself to be an exceptional novelist as well. BURNING MARGUERITE is one of those rare books that lives beyond its pages.

The novel begins simply: James finds his elderly "guardian" Marguerite dead in the morning snow. What follows, however, is anything but simple: we learn of the complex relationship between James Jack and his Tante Marguerite, of Marguerite's unconventional and tragic past, of what the future might hold for James. Every detail is related with vibrancy and relevance so the reader is constantly engaged in this touching novel of love and death. The world created here is as full and as real as one can find in 250 pages.

Inness-Brown has an astounding talent for narrative and language. She has a deceptively direct style; the words are ordinary but the images and emotions they convey are extraordinary. Her characters are so expertly drawn that they have a depth and humanity that few novelists achieve, let alone in their debuts.

I highly recommend this book. Although readers of literary fiction will be naturally drawn to this novel, readers of more commercial works should also find much to delight them. This accessible tale has a universality that should appeal to a wide range of readers.

Alternating locale between sultry New Orleans and a cold and craggy New England island, author Inness-Brown uses landscape and 'sense of place' to skillfully enhance the depths of her already very complex and passionate characters. Fire is a recurring motif, having been responsible for initiating the series of tragic events that both unite a family and pull it asunder. Flashbacks aren't supposed to be a popular fiction format, say some, but in Burning Marguerite, they work. Boy, do they work. Don't miss this one.

I was in the midst of another book I was reading, when a copy of "Burning Marguerite", came across my desk. It is the just-published, debut novel by Elizabeth Inness-Brown, who had written two collections of short stories previously. The author lives with her husband and young son on the island of South Hero in Lake Champlain, Vermont. South Hero is much like the fictional Grain Island where most of the story takes place. An island to be loved yet feared. With it's rock, flowers, green fields, forests, and leaden gray skies over the water before a storm. It's harsh beauty, a builder of character, as much as a bender of backs and tree limbs. It's deep quarries and rich dirt a place to hide, a place to bury sins.
The sleet peppered against the window as I started to skim through the first pages of the book, just to get an idea of it. Much, much later the sleet had stopped, and the night was deep, and I just could not keep reading. But, my, my, was I hooked. What a glorious first novel she had written.
The next morning, I immediately picked it up and began reading again as the teakettle whistled. Everything else had to wait; I had to finish this book. It wraps the reader in it's textures.
"Burning Marguerite", is the story of James Jack Wright and his "Tante," ninety-four-year-old Marguerite Deo, who raised him from infancy. One chilly snowy morning James Jack finds his beloved aunt lying dead along a trail between her house and the cabin above it that James Jack lived in. As the young man ponders the mystery of why she chose to die there, and how he can secretly honor her final wish, the story spins into the past, then back to the present in Marguerite's voice and in James's. From a tragedy in a shack on the lake during ice fishing that changed both their lives, to Marguerite in New Orleans during the Depression, a young woman finding herself, after running from forbidden love, and a violent act that ended in murder.
After her return years later to the rocky island, determination steels Marguerite's back, and she sets her course; to raise and love the orphan boy named James Jack as her own, come hell or high water. The story of their relationship and decades long love for each other makes this compellingly beautiful, yet heartbreaking work simply, an exquisitely crafted novel.
In "Burning Marguerite", the author has created characters that sing with complexity. moral fiber, and passion. And James Jack's lawbreaking final act of love for his "Tante" brings him maturity as a man that he had lacked up until then. "Tante" had finally set him free.
This book will remain in the heart of the reader, like memories of a loving old aunt or mother forever.

Marvin Minkler of The North Star Monthly

This well-crafted story is the best book I've read so far this year. I savored each chapter-stretching out its 234 lyrical pages over many days. It cannot be called a "fast read." A gifted writer, Elizabeth Inness-Brown fills her paragraphs with stunning and flavorful detail as she tells the story of Marguerite, "Tante," and her adopted son, James Jack and their life on a remote, frozen island. It is both heartbreaking and liberating, and I highly recommend this book.

From the author of "I'm Living Your Dream Life," McKenna Publishing

This is the ultimate tale about a mother's love. "Burning Marguerite" is a stirring novel about the exploration of shame and forgiveness. It is a psychological suspense about family secrets, heartbreaking love affairs, and most importantly, devotion to a young boy. Elizabeth Inness-Brown is a wonderfully descriptive writer whose characters are rich and complex, and whose plot is full of twists and turns. If you are looking for a novel with depth "Burning Marguerite" is for you.

Every once in a while you run across an author that single-handedly reaffirms your faith in contemporary literary fiction. Elizabeth Inness-Brown's debut novel is a pleasure to experience. Her story of "a love so hot, as to incinerate all doubt" is wonderfully told and I recommend it to anyone looking to find a new favorite author.

Elizabeth Inness-Brown's Burning Marguerite is at once intimate and expansive; unpretentious and ambitious. It immerses us immediately and easily into the complex inner lives of a handful of well-defined characters, whose lives entwine together on one dramatic day. Inness-Brown deftly negotiates a complex narrative structure that juxtaposes first and third person narration, the present and the past, and complex characters who encircle each other in a carefully choreographed, exquisite dance. Burning Marguerite creates a small, ordinary world and populates it with rich, complicated characters whose histories and hopes belie the apparent simplicity of the plot.

In many ways, Burning Marguerite reminded me of Marilynne Robinson's wonderful 1981 novel Housekeeping: the thematic exploration of multiple layers of memory and the past, the creation in Marguerite of a strong, unconventional woman (much like Robinson's Sylvie), the frozen lake that becomes another character in the novel: "The town had learned the futility of fighting the lake for the right to have a road along its edge.... In places now the road became beach, and after thaws and rains, or during a storm it disappeared under water."

It reminds me too of E. Annie Proulx's fiction: the unremitting cold; but more importantly, the transformation of the most quotidian events into poetic ritual. Liz's careful description of ice-fishing (tip-ups and creepers and huts), for instance, is much like Proulx's use of nautical knots in The Shipping News.

This is not to suggest that Burning Marguerite is in any way derivative; Inness-Brown's clear, clipped style is quite different from the more langorous prose of Robinson and Proulx. It is to say that for me, this novel is what the best contemporary novels are: a poetic exploration of the ordinary lives of ordinary characters; characters whom we come to know and care about, and whom we will remember always. It is a fine novel, and a darned good read.

I recommend this book, highly! It is very rich and textured and one of the few books where I have cried at the end. I feel this book is a real diamond among all the other rocks out there, that people seem to be reading. Thank you Ms. Inness-Brown for writing such a beautiful story!!

BURNING MARGUERITE is a wonderfully-written novel that draws the reader firmly but gently into a slowly unfolding story that will touch them not only deeply but also in a lasting way. Her characterizations are vivid and believable - her characters are likable but not perfect - and the tale and emotions are ones to which anyone can relate.

... Elizabeth Inness-Brown's reputation as a respected writer of short fiction is well-established. With this book, she shows her readers - new and old - that she has enormous talents with the longer form as well. The story - and her characters - unfold themselves before our eyes, from two very different but close perspectives.

Part of the story is told in the third person, viewing the life of James Jack Wright. ...

The other perspective from which this story unfolds is that of Marguerite herself......As with all of us, there are joys as well as tragedies through which these characters must navigate on their journeys through this life. These joys and tragedies are universal to us all, and yet they are unique to each individual they touch - such is the nature of humanity, and it is with great skill and caring that Elizabeth Inness-Brown has translated this into the printed word. This novel is rich and compelling, intelligent and moving - and it is a pure joy to experience writing of this caliber. I can't recommend this novel highly enough.

I read "Burning Marquerite" when it first came out. I was astounded, and so gratified I could barely stand it. This novel addresses intimate parts of the human experience and does it with grace, wisdom and controlled eloquence.

The geographic reach of the story adds to its appeal, from New England to New Orleans, secrets and love are held close but held fast. There's so much in this novel to satisfy -- a rare blend of exquisite story and just-restrained language. This novel is truly finest kind.