11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Kingsley House, April 3, 2000
This review is from: The Kingsley House (Hardcover)
If you've ever looked at your family tree and wondered about the stories behind the simple structure of names, dates, and the lines connecting them, The Kingsley House can open your mind to the possibilities. This is a wonderfully imagined re-creation of the lives that inhabited a house built by pioneers in the first half of the 1800s in Livonia, Michigan. What makes the re-creation of these lives special is that they are the ancestors of the author, a first-time novelist who demonstrates a first-class ability to weave story after story with each passing generation.
Each of the novel's six books begins with the family tree, updated to reflect the marriages and births and deaths that set the stage for the following chapters. You can almost join the author in her creative imagining of how the family will change over the decades, of how the children were influenced by their parents, became parents themselves, and passed on to their children a mix of both old and new family traits while the children branched out themselves in traditional manner, or struck out in startling new directions.
In some ways, this book reminded me of Philip Caputo's "The Voyage", which also re-creates a family's life in the past and present, and of other novels that have traced a family's generations, such as Meredith Tax's "Rivington Street" and "Union Square".
"The Voyage" has a central, unifying mystery, about why a father should suddenly send his sons away alone on a wooden ship. Tax's novels are unified by the political events surrounding and involving the family. The unifying strength of "The Kingsley House" is more modest, the icon of the house itself and the family tree that flourished under its roof. But this is an icon that can resonate with every reader lucky enough to be part of a family that has a homestead, a place where the generations multiplied and, from time to time, gather to celebrate their lives. The example of the author in recreating her ancestors as fully imagined individuals is a wonderful gift that readers can take to their hearts and exercise for themselves. I know that as I have read each chapter, I've wondered how my own ancestors reacted to the events of their times, met their mates, raised their children. Arliss Ryan shows how this can be done.
A note on the book itself is deserved here. St. Martin's Press has published many books that I enjoy, and its treatment of this first novel is superb, from jacket design to typeface and illustrations. This is a book that, like the house built by Nathan Kingsley, is a finely crafted work, and a proper home for the lives within and their visitors.
This is a book I intend to tell my friends and relatives about, especially those who have been capturing oral histories, and keeping the family photo albums.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fall in love with a family and its history!, April 10, 2000
By A Customer
This review is from: The Kingsley House (Hardcover)
The Kingsley House by Arliss Ryan turned out to be a book I didn't want to put down. At first it seemed simply written, but suddenly I found myself "seeing" the characters so clearly - feeling their joys and sorrows, moving through four generations of American history. As you read through her mostly fictional tales of four generations of her own family living in this historic home in Livonia Michigan, you feel their family traits passed from family to family, from grandfather to nephew, from mother to daughter. And you feel the urban sprawl of Detroit grow further out into the farmlands, encroaching on small town values and childhood memories. For anyone who has a family home that has passed from generation to generation, you will recognize the way it feels to walk through a room and envision your grandfather sitting in the same spot you do now, watching fires in the same fireplace, taking books from the same bookcases. Arliss Ryan writes in her Author's Note at the end of the book that she hopes her ancestors will approve of her story. I am sure they will - and her readers will too!
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Great Family History Novel, October 22, 2000
This review is from: The Kingsley House (Hardcover)
I really enjoyed this book, and Arliss Ryan's writing is very good. This book spans one family's history over 150 years, as it relates to the house they lived in. As with any family there were eccentric people, lovable people, interesting people and funny people, as well as the "family black sheep". Ms Ryan develops her characters very well, and you can tell that she is writing about people she is familiar with. For anyone who likes to read about a specific family's life over the span of a century or more, please read this book.
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