Customer Reviews

Home to Holly Springs (Father Tim, Book 1)

5 star:		(119)
4 star:		(37)
3 star:		(15)
2 star:		(13)
1 star:		(17)

 

 

I was so happy to hear that Jan Karon was writing about Father Tim's early life. After all, he came to us fully grown, without much back story.

Enjoying retirement and his life in Mitford, North Carolina, Father Tim receives a letter postmarked from his home town. The letter contains only two words: Come home.

Although it's been 38 years since he was in Holly Springs, Father Tim and his loyal canine companion Barnabus set out from Mitford, to the small Mississippi town of his childhood.

The book is lovely. Like the Southern town in the title, the story moves along at its own pace and we're the better for it. Getting to know the people from Father Tim's home town is both satisfying and fulfilling. I fell in love with each one.

Karon is a great storyteller and a keen observer of human nature. As each scene plays out, we get the feeling that Father Tim is wrapping up a lot of unfinished business.

We meet his first love. We learn why there was so much friction between Father Tim and his father. We learn why Father Tim's mother was sad. We learn how Tim found his way to the priesthood.

When the "big reveal" comes, and Father Tim learns the purpose behind the letter, the emotions of all the parties just leap off the page and into your heart. I could see the sitting room in Peggy's house and I could taste the homemade lemonade she served Father Tim as she poured her heart out. Some professional reviewers have chastised Karon for a "Hollywood" ending. To me, it played out perfectly.

Karon is a master of sweet, gentle fiction and she is on top of her game here.

I will be re-reading "Home to Holly Springs" again soon. It's that good.

Enjoy.

Just as Father Tim had been away from Holly Springs for nearly 40 years and yet when he returns "it's like he never left," so likewise those of us who have read many of Karon's books have missed the time in Mitford with her, this new series brings us instantly back home to her comfortable style and easy prose. The mystery of a two-word letter for him to "come home" unfolds linked with flashbacks into his past which provide the historical setting. In this are such as suspected murder, rape and mysterious disappearance of family and friends, as well as inter-family spiritual matters between Baptists and Episcopalian.

It's much like her Mitford series with joke tellers, and Fr.Tim making new acquaintances easily as well as reacquainting with past ones. Much to this reviewer's delight is her continued emphasis of the faith which easily intensifies in such a series focused around the developing life of this Episcopalian priest.

However, even if the reader is not into this Christian side of things, there is so much other great veins running through this, such as human compassion for those of all color and race.

Easily one can see possible projections of this series in return visits to Mississippi as well as development of this new set of characters that were not in sight in Mitford. Great to see the inclusion of many of Mitford cast which hopefully and likely will continue in this one. So we have the new, exciting series to wait and see where our wordsmith superb Karon will be leading us.

I was afraid that when Ms. Karon finished the Mitford books and decided to explore Father Tim's early life that I would not like it because she had left Mitford behind. I was mistaken in my presumption. I quickly learned that, as Father Tim says in this book: "Home is not Mitford. Home is not Holly Springs. Home is where Cynthia and family are." To me, home is where Father Tim is. Tim is his usual warm and wonderful self in this book. He never meets a stranger and always has a kind and loving word for everyone. When I read Karon's books, it makes me want to be a better Christian. I want to go to Father Tim's church, hear him preach and have him pray for me. Karon explores Father Tim's boyhood and growing up years. My heart cried for him when his father treated him so badly. I loved Father Tim's mother and I think he got his generous soul from her. I love how he handled the big reveal hinted at in the two word letter that sent him to Holly Springs. I don't think we have seen the last of Holly Springs. I laughed and cried and was blessed by this book, just as I was at all 9 Mitford books and the companion volumes. There is a lot of sadness and pain in this book, but there is also tremendous joy and great love. I would have like to have seen more of Cynthia and Dooley, but it was such a wonderful journey we take with Father Tim. There are great characters in Holly Springs, too. My favorite is Mitford, though, I must confess. I just returned today from Blowing Rock, NC, where Karon lived when writing many of the Mitford books and which is believed to be the town she modeled Mitford after. It is a lovely little village and I feel like I'm maybe feeling a little bit of Mitford when I visit as I have done on many occasions. This is simply a wonderful and charming book and I look forward to more of Father Tim's life. I only wish she wrote faster! I read the book and then I was disappointed because I was finished and would have to wait for another one!

Home to Holly Springs by Jan Karon is the first book in the Father Tim series. This book picks up shortly after the last Mitford book, Light From Heaven. Seventy year old Father Tim Kavanaugh has received a mysterious letter from his childhood home of Holly Springs, Mississippi saying simply: Come home. He left 38 years ago in anger and pain, but the letter haunts him and puts him on a 600 mile road trip to solve the mystery of the letter and bring healing to life-long wounds. First off, I've read a few reviews trashing this book for its coincidences and other trivial complaints, but what the readers are really upset about is that this isn't a Mitford book. While Cynthia and Dooley make appearances, this book is really about Father Tim becoming reconciled to his past. The storytelling is quite different than the Mitford books: in depth character study as opposed to sweet hometown dramedy. There are still quirky characters galore and Tim's honest faith and belief in the Lord. I really enjoyed reading this book. The dialog is terrific and perfect for the slow as molasses Southern feel of the book. Anyone who has read the Mitford series is familiar with Tim's anger toward his father. Here we begin to understand why Tim is so angry, but also why his father was who he was. Many mysteries are cleared up, but many more opportunities for storylines are opened. Yes, the coincidences run heavy, but God does tend to work that way sometimes. I was able to take all of them except for the final one involving Tommy Noles. My only other complaint: why on earth did Karon feel the need to give two people in Tim's past the same first name?? Two Peggy's makes for some awkward reading on occasion. There is one humorous editing error: Instead of saying that Cynthia was cleared to drive, it reads that she was clear to drink, making the rest of the sentence about her driving all over Memphis worth an unintentional giggle. Read this book with an open mind and don't expect Mitford. You won't be disappointed.

I have been a huge fan of the Mitford books since the first one came out. I even have the cookbook and bedside reader and read them often! So I bought this book with high hopes and great relief that I didn't have to say goodbye to my old friend so soon after all.

Unfortunately, the way that Karon wrapped up every single solitary thing in Father Tim's past so miraculously and unimaginatively, made me wish that she'd left us with the complex, good, struggling man that we love so dearly from her past books.

In addition, the writing was downright clunky for most of the book. She made really unclear and jolting transitions between past and future, so that I'd find myself going back a paragraph and reading more slowly to see if I had missed some kind of transition. Every time she went from past to future I was pulled out of the story because the transitions were confusing or nonexistent, and she went in and out of the past every other page in some parts.

I think the problem might be poor editing? Had a good third to half of the first half of the book been cut or filled with some real substance instead of tediously written detail, the book would have been a lot better.

And to get back to the miraculous happenings that allowed him to clear up every single thing in his past on one trip, I want to add a disclaimer. I like happy endings. I don't mind stretching my imagination to believe that wonderful and coincidental things happen so that the main character can be happy. But Karon stretched it WAY past the point of believability.

I was really disappointed in this latest from her. I will certainly buy the next one, but perhaps I will wait for the paperback.

Although I have loved and reread all of Karon's other books, I found this one to be disappointing. Her triumph generally is in the funny details of everyday life and conversation. This book dragged in every cliche of southern living and literature ever, from the rape to the illegitimate birth to the consumption of odd animals. Her characters are always lovable, but these weren't her most credible. Furthermore, the number of characters well into their nineties who remember exactly what Fr. Tim wants to know about his childhood became a little absurd. Some of the scenes are enchanting, and Cynthia is always a treat, but the road back through his childhood to find the answers to old questions was ultimately unconvincing. Attributing it all to God's divine intervention came off as an attempt to get away with an unrealistic plot, rather than a genuine witness to God's power. If you are a big fan, your time will be better spent rereading Shepherds Abiding!

After reading initial reviews of this book, I left it on my shelf for many months trying to avoid what I thought would be inevitable disappointment. I love the Mitford series - have read every book and listened to the excellent unabrided audio of each. I wanted so badly to return to these much-loved characters and watch their lives move away from Mitford and all that was familiar. I finally picked up the book with the intention of deciding for myself. Well, I liked it. Granted, it was slow going at times and the flashbacks were a little jarring at first (hence, my four stars). It also lacks the overt humor of the other books, but it's GOOD. It really is. The Mitford series built beautifully on the one thing that seemed to be an Achille's heel to Father Tim - his relationship with his father and HOME TO HOLLY SPRINGS provides many of the answers to nine books' worth of wondering. It's a quiet, thoughtful, deep novel and kudos to Jan Karon for braving the criticism to give fans of Mitford this book.

Jan Karon's Mitford series, so full of sweetness and simple charm, has been one of my all-time favorite "comfort reads" for many years. As such, I had high hopes for her new "Father Tim" series. What a disappointment! She seems to have decided to get serious, moving away from the predictable, but delightful, formula of the Mitford stories, and attempting to delve deeper into psychological drama; a move out of her comfort (and skill) zone which proved disasterous. The narrative was uneven: dragging one moment, clogged with uninteresting minutae, and in the next, hitting the reader over the head with one momentous revelation after another. Ms. Karon failed to create a sense of place, so key in the Mitford series; the characters were wooden; and worse, the story was woefully lacking in humor; one of the delights of the Mitford books. Finally, her wrap-up, with its flurry of implausable synchronicities, stretched my credulity well past the breaking point. Rather than taking its place with its well-thumbed predecessors on my bookshelf, as I had fully expected, I couldn't get rid of this book fast enough.

One of the surprising things about the now 10-volumes Father Tim series is how uneven they are from book to book. The first four were quite good, if a little too--well, nice--in portraying Mitford, North Carolina's inhabitants. The books are "Pleasantville" all over again. Mixed in, after the first four books, are some that are not very good at all and some that are only OK.

Now Timothy Kavanaugh returns to his boyhood home, Holly Springs, Mississippi, to learn about some family secrets and come to terms with who he is and what shaped him. The characters seem a bit one dimensional. The plot line is vague and frequently interrupted by meandering asides, by comments on Mississippi history and other matters that seeminghly have nothing to do with any central theme or plot.

Perhaps one plot factor that makes this an uneven read is the travel back and forth from the present to the past. Some writers can make this weave perfectly clear--but not in this case. I had to stop several times and go back to see whether it was today or sixty years ago.

But what I found most annoying was the dialect. It just didn't work at all. Writing "th'" for "the" and "an'" for "and" are but two examples of how far this is carried. It is apparently intended to show that these are southern country folk who leave off letters. When there are black characters speaking, the dialect gets worse, much worse. If a writer is going to use dialect, it should be done sparingly and certainly better than it is here.

Really good writers, ones with a good ear for speech patterns, can accomplish the same result with the rhythm of conversation and by use of sentence fragments and other mannerisms, i.e., the way people really talk. The unlettered people in this book speak in complete sentences and neat paragraphs--but in dialect.

In summary, the plot is not quite worth the trip, and the writing style gets in the way of what plot there is.

Well written, language-wise. 5-star there.

Very different in nature to the Mitford Years books. This does not have the same devotional quality, the same generally-safe feel.

Not a family read-aloud book!

Very hard, mature subject matter -- I couldn't finish the book, and parts of the book "haunted" me for days and even weeks.

Personally, I would give the subject matter a much lower rating than 5-star, but that doesn't mean others won't necessarily like and benefit from reading the book.

Think, "To Kill A Mockingbird,", "Huck Finn," and Charles Dickens' books of social commentary -- all trying to change deplorable conditions. Worthy, but not pleasant, and not for everyone.

Although the subject matter has many mature subjects and hard things, I think the overall purpose is that bad things happen, even really bad things, and then how people try to come to grips with those bad things, either with or without God, and for good or for bad.

I think this book will probably make a lasting positive contribution towards healing race relations, with how Father Tim hates injustice and meanness towards black people in general, and Peggy in particular.

There is too much discrepancy between this book's account of Father Tim's childhood, and his memories in this book. Too many really hard things surface here that were never mentioned in the least in the Mitford Years series -- about his former fiance, Peggy Cramer; about his mother's house help and companion -- his beloved Peggy; etc.

I think there was too graphic a description of how Father Tim saw someone close to his heart being raped when he was a child.

I wish I had known this would have been so different in type than the Mitford years before I started reading it. It still leaves me shaken.