Customer Reviews

The Civil Wars of Jonah Moran: A Novel

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In her wonderful second book, Marjorie Reynolds creates an intriguing story set in the logging town of Misp in Washington's Olympic Peninsula. From the gripping prologue, Ms.Reynolds carries the reader through Jessica Moran's profound search for truth that combines deep family angst with cultural bitterness and small town prejudices. I was hooked from the very beginning and read her book straight through. Jessica's journey for truth set against the backdrop of a vanishing part of Pacific Northwest life fascinated me.

Marjorie Reynolds once again delivers with strong themes and interesting characters. She is not afraid to address a cross-cultural romance and mental disablement. Her settings come off the page--I forgot I was on my own porch several times as I read her descriptions of the Olympic peninsula. An absorbing read by a writer who delivers what she promises.

This excellent novel was intriguing from the beginning to the end. Complex family relationships between mother and daughter, daughter and father, sister and brother unfold as the primary theme, the possiblility of gross injustice, is explored. Reynolds has created a cast of believable characters who grow in self-knowledge as the events in the novel affect their lives. Jonah, a young man diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome, a mild form of autism, is especially well-developed without traces of sentimentality. The author also very capably writes an inter-cultural romantic relationship with honesty and respect for the similarities and the differences of the couple. Readers who enjoy vivid descriptions, a bit of mystery, well-written dialogue, and writing that is sensitive in it's development of characters will appreciate and enjoy this fine second novel.

I thought The Civil Wars of Jonah Moran was a great book. It took place in the pacific northwest. It is about this woman in her mid 30s. She comes back to this town in the northwest. It is filled with romance, heartbreak, love, dedication to family, and a on going feud with her mother. It also has some mystery to it. If you are interested in this sort of thing you will like it. This was my first time reading a Reynolds book. It was excellent. I wouldn't mind reading something else of hers again!

After reading "The Starlite Drivein" I thought this author couldn't possibly do it again, but she did. Civil Wars delivers realistic, sympathetic characters in a unique setting, with plenty of conflict and drama. After the stunning prologue, I was with these people every moment, feeling their pain and rooting for them. This is a must-read, now on Kindle at a reasonable price.

I was drawn into this story quickly. The author has perfectly captured the geography and characters of the Olympic Penninsula, and Lila, in particular, is a baffling character whom the reader wants to understand. But in the end, I felt that the resolution was sewn up through contrivance, reconciliations were almost arbitrary, and the great "why" at the heart of the book didn't explain the heartlessness of Lila's actions. As she did in The Starlite Drive-In, this writer has once again organized her plot around a mental/neurological condition, but her portrait of Aspberger syndrome is not complex or compelling like her portrait of agoraphobia. Both books deal with another familiar theme...the dual nature of men, and which parts count, when remembering a very flawed man who has committed acts of betrayal while living a respectable life. This an entertaining book, but I was hoping for more than entertainment after that fantastic first chapter--and the final passage is as trite, clumsy-footed and improbable as a Sasquatch sighting.

Marjorie Reynolds' book THE CIVIL WARS OF JONAH MORAN sat on my bookshelf for a couple of years before I pulled it out from the near bottom of one of my many stacks of unread books (as a fellow reader I'm sure you can relate to that). Although I should've read this book when it first came out, I'm glad I waited until now. Jonah Moran has Asperger's Syndrome and two years ago I wouldn't have had a clue as to what this was all about. In the past month I have done a lot of research on this syndrome since the child of a friend was diagnosed with it. I had no idea this book referred to A.S. until I started to read it. When they say there are no accidents, they're right.

Back to the story though - this is a wonderful book. I loved Ms. Reynolds' first novel and was not disappointed with this one. Although there are some complex twists and turns to the plot, she manages them with ease and clarity. The relationships between Jessica and her family are realistic & well-developed and the changes that take place are logical. I've spent very little time in the Pacific Northwest, but I enjoyed reading about the area and the Native American side of the story makes it even more interesting.

I place Marjorie Reynolds right up there with Elizabeth Berg, Jane Smiley, and Anita Shreve in her ability to tell a good story about people you'd like to know.

The story opens on May 3, 1979. Jessica, 16 and her brother, Jonah 9 literally start their summer of with a bang. Their racist mother hounds Jonah to learn to swim and shoves him off the dock. The boy's father goes in to save him, only to drown. While Jonah still has to be saved, this tragic event sets the wheels in motion for some tragedies to come.

The beautiful rain forests in Washington State in a small, mill town act as foil/counterpoint to the seething, Civil War within the community. Jessica is at war with her racist mother who has fired all the Native American workers from the logging mill. An iron-hearted bigot, she forces Jessica to move to California once she discovers Jessica has become pregnant from a Native boy at age 16. She ships the girl to California to stay with elderly relatives and makes snide, racist comments about the daughter Jessica never got to know.

Meanwhile, other Civil Wars are brewing. When Jessica returns to Washington after a disastrous divorce, Jonah has become more socially quirky and is ostracized and ridiculed by many locals. On March 28, 1998 a halfway house for ex-cons is burned. Naturally, suspicion falls to Jonah. A bright, naive man of 28, Jonah spends all of his spare time with his army of miniature soldiers re-enacting the Civil War. He has an encyclopediac knowledge of the war and those who fought in it. His miniatures are painted with exacting detail and he appears oblivious to the social mores and constraints of the community at large.

Jonah appears to be more at the autistic end of the autism/Asperger's scale. While he is proficient at self care and is verbal and clearly bright, his social ineptitude and verbalizations and adherence to routine and sensory sensitivies point him further down the continuum towards autism. His special interest is the one hallmark of Asperger's.

Meanwhile, the mystery of the Burned Halfway House is underway. Since one of Jonah's miniature figures was found on the grounds and shoeprints that match his, all eyes are on him. Jonah is very naive and not adept at defending himself. Even so, the suspect list grows. A former resident; an elderly neighbor who witnessed the event but does not initially come forward; a local bigot who dates Jessica; his bigot cronies are all on the suspect list.

However, there are silver linings in these smoky clouds. Callum Luke, the father of Jessica's daughter re-enters her life. They join forces to find the arsonist.

This is an excellent book with a realistic character who has autism. I like the way Native customs and history are included as well as the rich descriptions of the beautiful Evergreen State. The Civil Wars of the logging Moran family within each other and the small town bigots against Jessica and Callum keep the theme consistent. What a gifted writer and an extraordinary book!

Reynolds easily transports the reader into the magical emerald mists of the Olympic Peninsula's temperate rain forest. Her main character, Jessica Moran, is wrapped in a weave of protective love for her brother who suffers from a newly discovered neurological disorder called Asperger's Syndrome.

Jessica's life is further complicated by her difficult but triumphant struggles in romance as well as her mother/daughter relationship. Reynold's characters have depth and courage. It's a wonderful, rewarding, cozy read. Enjoy!!

Set in the majestic rain forests of the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State, Marjorie Reynold's admirable "Civil Wars" compels the reader's attention in a tautly told arson/murder mystery. The crackling pace of the novel, however, does not diminish the superior characterizations which provide complexity and depth to an otherwise exciting, but non-groundbreaking, novel. Indeed, the psychological tensions of the Moran family -- their origins, impact and resolution -- are the genuine backbone of the novel. Relationships twisted by guilt, abandonment, resentment and resignation become the true focus of the reader's attention; the ever-present dampness and density of growth of the area become symbolic counterpoints to the aridity of human contact the Moran mother and daughter have with one another.

Ironically, this fecund environment (lavishly described by Ms. Reynolds) has generated a remarkably fractured family. The angry matriarch, Lila Moran, capably presides over a logging empire while bemoaning the condition of her personal life. Her son, Jonah, never has emerged as a man, and instead of acknowledging his retardation due to a relatively rare neurological disorder, Lila prefers to rue his adult childhood obsession with Civil War figures. As disappointed as she is with her son, she saves a special animosity for her daughter, Jessica, who has returned home after a failed marriage and an unsatisfying adulthood. Jessica's anguish centers around the tragic drowning death of her father, who perished while attempting to rescuse Jonah, who was precipitously thrown in the water by Lila, in a brutally cruel manner of teaching him to swim. This scar runs like a red thread through "Civil Wars" and only through Jessica's renewal of a relationship with the sympathetically-portrayed Callum Lake is there any chance of healing. Callum, unfortunately, never receives the in-depth portrait he otherwise richly deserves. His adolescent feelings for Jessica serve both as personal and dramatic motivation in the resolution of the arson/murder investigation which professionally absorbs his time.

There is much to admire in Marjorie Reynolds' writing. She can, without questions, probe to the inner recesses of our emotions and provide unflinching portraits of both human good and evil. She is a nuanced writer as well, always writing to make her characters believable. My sole reservations with her second novel are small, but critical. The reader knows, from the first fifty pages, that the plot will be resolved tidily; Lila and Jessica's coming-to-grips with their own unresolved hurt and betrayal appears almost like a soap opera. The author's brilliant first novel, "The Starlite Drive-in" did not have these flaws. Nevertheless, "Civil Wars" is an honorable, penetrating look into a family at war with itself.