From Publishers Weekly
Straightforward, often lyrical prose and a sympathetic yet clear-eyed historical perspective characterize Wood's first novel following the successful trilogy that began with The Train to Estelline. This time, she focuses on four families living on the 900 block of Pine Street in the East Texas town of Cold Springs in 1944. As World War II rages in Europe, Grace Gillian, a 38-year-old high school English teacher with a "wild Irish streak," is at the center of things on the home front. Grace's husband, Bucy, has recently abandoned her, unleashing a torrent of local gossip, and much of the novel turns on the question of which future Grace will choose will it be with the bereaved husband of a recently deceased neighbor, a handsome sergeant she meets on a train or her own estranged husband? Equally affecting are the stories of Bobby Moore, an earnest teenager with poor eyesight who desperately wants to participate in the war effort, and Bobby's seemingly mismatched parents, his oh-so-Southern father, Robert, and his outsider Yankee mother, Barbara. Passion pops up in unusual places, even as the war years offer the opportunity for everyone to finally grow up. As the war drags to an end, the distant horrors of battle are having a profound effect on the town, and insanity is in the air, changing lives irrevocably. Like a good parent, Wood stands back and lets the sturdy characters of her smalltown novel discover just what's important. Despite the sadness of loss and the bitterness of hard-won knowledge, the novel's conclusion is jubilantly triumphant, as satisfying as a snapshot of V-E Day. (Apr. 3)Forecast: Wood's move to Dutton from the smaller U. of North Texas Press, which published her Estelline trilogy, should bring added attention and sales to this increasingly popular author.
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Wood's passionate novel illuminates the many ways World War II affected small-town America, by focusing on two characters: Bobby Moore, a high-school senior who is not eligible to enlist because of his lazy eye, and Grace Gillian, a schoolteacher whose husband has recently left her. Bobby, resentful that he is unable to join the army along with his friends and desperate to impress the girl whom he's set his heart on, becomes increasingly critical of his father's racism and his family's insistence that he is lucky to be out of danger. Grace, depressed by how many of her former students have died in the trenches of Europe and frustrated by the propaganda that inspires her current students to enlist at an alarming rate, struggles to help others come to grips with the turmoil the war has created. Wood illuminates the puzzles of racism, sexism, patriotism, and poverty, while dramatizing how the necessities of war blurred social and personal boundaries, and changed the lives of subsequent generations.
Bonnie JohnstonCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
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