Customer Reviews

Every Last Cuckoo

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I hated when Every Last Cuckoo by Kate Maloy ended--the sign of a truly good book! I wanted to learn more about characters that I had come to feel I knew. The characters are so well drawn and fully fleshed out that it doesn't take long before you feel you know them and would be more than happy to have them in your home.
This is the story of Sarah and her long marriage to Charles. After Sarah loses Charles to an accident, we see Sarah's devastating grief, feel her despair. But circumstances keep Sarah from isolating herself with her grief. Sarah starts taking in struggling and lost souls, people who need a place to rest and recuperate from what life has handed them. And while Sarah still grieves for Charles, she becomes comfortable in this new part of her life.
I would recommend this book to anyone who likes a warm-hearted story of love and loss, living your life the best way you can under hard circumstances. Ms. Maloy has done a truly outstanding job with this book and I look forward to more books by her.

Kate Maloy takes a common situation, the death of a spouse, to ruminate on what truly is important in one's life. At age 75, Sarah mourns her beloved Charles, but before she can become embedded in her grief unexpected situations force her forward movement. Three teenagers, all lost in their youthful insecurity and pomposity, find lodging in Sarah's abode as well as a mother and son, misplaced by a vicious fire that kills the husband. Add to this mix an abused wife with a baby, a Jewish scholar from Israel and you have a melding of human kind struggling together in Sarah's home toward normal if the state exists. From each of their situations, Sarah gleans a stronger understanding of purpose, and perhaps more importantly, acceptance.

In this gently paced tale Maloy never preaches wisdom; she uniquely opens it for consideration. What do we do when life throws punches and we aren't equipped to fight back? Train in the safe arena of friends till we have the tools to protect our hearts and souls? Find new avenues to contentment? Accept and let be? Maloy is lyrical in her proposed solutions and that highlights this lovely work.

A beautiful, wonderfully composed gift to the world of the written word.

This was a kind book, and smart, and I found myself deeply caring about every one of the large cast of characters -- and I had no trouble keeping them straight in my mind, which is something. There was a true warmth to it -- sweet and a bit sentimental without being in any way mawkish or ever ringing false. The small adjustments we all constantly make in our lives in order that they be good and so that we can live with ourselves and each other -- Kate Maloy captures the dynamics of family, and humanity, with real soul. This book made me feel good.

The heroine, Sarah, is my new role model for growing old. Now if only I can figure out how to move back to Vermont...

This isn't a whoop-em-up novel with lots of hot action ... it is a story with pace that works for thinkers and readers, for those who have a taste for content, wisdom, exquisite environs. Maloy's Vermont is a place I'd love to live in although I'm snow phobic -- her small-town is idylic enough without being impossible. When I grow old (in the not too distant future) I'd be thrilled to be half as generous, compassionate and content as Sarah. I'm thinking that, as the so-called baby-boomers age, there's going to be increasing demand for literature that intersects their history, stories and age. Kate Maloy had got it nailed.

This is a book much stronger on character and description than on plot. The plot falls down in several places, including Sarah's too-short mourning period and the gratuitous discussions about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But the author's power of description and ability to bring the reader into the scene are tremendous. For readers looking for a tightly woven plot, I wouldn't recommend this book. But for readers looking for scenes that will draw them in and make them feel like part of the family, this is a great book!

This well written, thoughtful book wasn't written for me. But it was written for me in later years when I need a road map on how to deal with loss and new life and how to see grandchildren for all the things that I can't see in my own kids now. It's written for the woman that misses her husband and isn't still yelling at him for putting the clothes NEXT to the hamper and not IN the hamper. It's written for the woman who is looking for the larger picture in life and not still consumed by the day in and day out mundane tasks that get us from point A to Point B.

This is the how to guide on growing gracefully and how the small things like caring for those that have no one else will make you life worth living. How when you have nothing left inside, you can still find more when you care for others.

Meet seventy five year old Sarah Lucas, her peaceful life has come to a crashing end when her husband of 50 years, Charles, has a sudden and devastating accident leaving Sarah alone and inconsolable. She is left with her memories and her questions. Her loses and her joys.

Unable to say no, that is not what her parents did, she opens her home to a rag tag group of people. First her granddaughter and her friends, then an Israeli pacifist, two fire victims, a young abused mother and her child, anyone and everyone one who needs a new start or a family to call their own. Slowly, they all come together and gain the confidence they need or the support they were looking for to rebuild their lives and to fly the nest.

This is a remarkable story of how you have choices in life, and when Sarah made the choice to take care of others, she took care of herself.

Sarah Lucas is in her seventies, but you don't need to be her age, or a grandmother, to thoroughly enjoy this novel. Kate Maloy writes beautifully and creates compelling characters that you wish could be your friends. There's Sarah, of course, a woman who decides not to let the death of her husband make her life smaller; on the contrary, she turns her house into a refuge for old and young, and ends up forging a different family. There's Hannah, an utterly delightful three-year-old. There's Lottie, Sarah's conflicted teenage grandchild. There's... oh, there are so many interesting characters, but you should get to know them by yourself, reading this novel. Don't miss it.

With little time to grieve the loss of her husband, Sarah opens her doors (her home and cabin) to others in need; for peace and quiet, friendship, support (moral and physical) and love. Through her openmindedness, Sarah expands her life and experiences multi-generations. She's not in a retirement community, or left to wander for naught-to-do. She has an abundance of people in her life. She graciously allows them to grow and learn, as she grows, through experiences without judgment. Each individual is portrayed uniquely and completely. It is inevitable that Sarah is able to close the gap between her own estranged daughter.
A great example of living life to the fullest!

I came across this book in the new books section of my public library. It has a colorful jacket cover and seemed interesting. I was not familiar with the author.

The story is about a 75 year old woman who loses her husband and rediscovers her life. There were some flash backs to her meeting and falling in love with her husband, a brief touch on his accident and subsequent death and then a lot of how she coped with her loss and being alone by taking in numerous boarders and discovering a love of abstract photography.

Honestly, I didn't find the boarders stories very well developed (most of them would have been quite interesting if told from their point of view). The minor characters came in and out of the story, but there never was much of a connection with them and I couldn't always keep track of names (her boarders, her family, her friends...)

I quickly got tired of how easy it was for this woman to get over her grief and become the relationship problem-solver of the family. By the end of the book I was reading it just to finish it and not because I cared about what was happening.

It was an okay read, a little boring perhaps and missing that take away moment or discovery that stays with you for later reflection.

Kate Maloy has an extraordinary gift for rendering physicality in evocative and beautiful ways. The story she tells, of a 75-year-old woman whose grief for her lost husband transmutes into a broader and more encompassing love for a variety of stray "cuckoos" who land in her nest is engaging and hopeful. The real reason to read this book, though is the sharp, stunning realism of the physical details--the erotic interactions, especially between an aged couple--something we almost never see in literature--and the unexpected but deeply felt beauty of a bobolink in the woods; a passionately angry child; and even, in one of the novel's most stunning moments, a pile of moose droppings. The language is a joy from beginning to end.