The Lavender Hour: A Novel [Paperback]

Anne Leclaire (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 27, 2007

Downsized from her teaching job, Jessie longs for a sense of renewal and decides to spend a year on Cape Cod, seeking to be cleansed by rushing ocean waters and comforted by the lavender hues of the setting sun. While there she volunteers with a local hospice program, where she meets Luke, a once proud fisherman whose life and body have been ravaged by cancer. Jessie’s presence is a great help to Luke’s mother, who has moved in to take care of her son.

After initial misgivings Jessie and Luke forge a deep friendship, and the former teacher is surprised to find herself opening up about her life, the loss of her father when she was a girl, her often difficult relationship with her mother, and her own battle with illness. When Luke makes a critical request of his new friend, Jessie must look deep within herself for an answer, knowing that her actions will have far-reaching effects on Luke’s family and forever change the bonds within her own.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

LeClaire's eighth novel (Entering Normal; Leaving Eden) centers on troubled Jessie Long, a cancer survivor who has passed the crucial five-year all-clear mark. Still unsettled and unattached at 32 with a self-proclaimed habit of looking for love in the wrong places, Jessie moves to her family's empty cottage on Cape Cod where she hopes to find some equilibrium while indulging in her side business—making jewelry. In the first of a series of increasingly destructive decisions, Jessie hides her medical history and volunteers to be a hospice worker. She is assigned to Luke Ryder, a 45-year-old commercial fisherman in the last stages of pancreatic cancer. Jessie falls in love before she ever meets with Luke, on the basis of a few candid photos, and as her need for love grows stronger and clouds her judgments, Luke inches ever closer to death. After Luke dies of a painkiller overdose, Jessie is hauled into court to face charges of assisting in his suicide. LeClaire might have brought some insight and complexity to her narrative during the trial, but instead it putters along. Jessie's epilogue epiphany, similarly, fails to convince. (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

In her eighth novel, LeClaire pulls out all the emotional stops in an operatic tale of 32-year-old cancer survivor Jessie Long. Five years after undergoing brain surgery, Jessie is declared cancer free and relocates to the family cottage in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, far from her mother and sister in Richmond, Virginia. The former art teacher lies about her medical history and becomes a volunteer at a hospice center. She freely admits that her romantic history has been disastrous and then promptly falls in love with her first hospice patient, 45-year-old commercial fisherman Luke Ryder, who is dying of pancreatic cancer. Jessie's emotional involvement clouds her judgment, and she ends up breaking nearly all of the guidelines laid out for volunteers. When Luke commits suicide by overdosing on pain medication, Jessie is charged with his murder. LeClaire's uninhibited portrayal of Jessie's more unfortunate tendencies--her unappealing hobby of making jewelry out of human hair, her constant carping about her mother's newfound happiness--makes this tale far more entertaining than its heavy subject matter would indicate. Joanne Wilkinson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books (March 27, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345460480
• ISBN-13: 978-0345460486
• Product Dimensions: 5.3 x 0.7 x 7.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #415,740 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Didn't want it to end...Jessie, let's go have coffee..., April 5, 2007

By 

Jo-Ann Mapson "novelist and dog lover" (Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Lavender Hour: A Novel (Paperback)

I've loved all of Anne's books, but The Lavender Hour is now my favorite. It's the story of an artist in her thirties who creates jewelry from human hair--very cool descriptions of this craft that made me want to see it in person--and who is a cancer survivor,trying to reconcile her life after the dreaded "downsizing" that isn't doing our current education system any favors. Jess moves to Cape Cod to regroup and then signs on to attend a man in hospice and begins to love him, knowing the feelings will be intense but their time together bitterly brief. This book took me to such surprising places. It was vividly told with realistic setting, and I could see each character clearly as if I were visiting, bringing along muffins or a loaf of bread. Without giving away the plot, I just want to say that I would love to read a book about EACH of the characters, and in fact I slowed my usual reading pace so as not to have to say good-bye to them too quickly. I wanted to be with them, go to the beach, eat lobster rolls, sip coffee, walk the dog (Rocker is such a great dog) and listen to Jessie tell me how her life is going now. I recommend this book to anyone who loves a story about real people demonstrating the ordinary grace required to get through real life situations. What it says about love I will be mulling over for a long time. Great read.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars interesting character study, April 5, 2007

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Lavender Hour: A Novel (Paperback)

Having passed the mystical five year mark of surviving cancer, but recently losing her Virginia teaching position and with no male attachments, thirty-two years old Jessie Long feels a need to start over. Ironically as she draws that conclusion the radio plays her life record with the other sex, Johnny Lee's oldie "Lookin for Love in All the Wrong Places. Jessie decides to move into the lavender smelling vacant family-owned cottage on Cape Cod.

Jessie volunteers to work at a local hospice, but conceals her cancer history from everyone. She is assigned to assist dying forty-five years old fisherman Luke Ryder. As they spend his last moments together, they fall in love. When the pancreatic cancer becomes too painful, she assists him with an overdose of pills. Not given time to mourn her loss, Jessie stands trial for murder as assisted suicide in Massachusetts is against the law and Luke's acrimonious daughter Paige, jealous of the intruder's time with her dad especially at the end, wants her hung.

This is an interesting character study that transcends the grieving process by looking at the complete person that Jessie is. Her decisions to abet Luke are not easy life and death choices though that it is black and white as far as the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. No pampering to the right to die with dignity crowd or to thou shall live regardless of the quality of life commandment crew. Instead readers obtain a discerning look at loving another human enough to sacrifice your own well being by assisting them with something that goes against your very need of more time with them.

Harriet Klausner

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thought-provoking without being heavy, April 24, 2007

By 

Linda H. (Delaware - Small Wonder) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Lavender Hour: A Novel (Paperback)

I've read all of Anne LeClaire's book and this is her best work yet.

Ms. LeClaire's insight into the human soul as demonstrated through her characters' development shows an intuition of the human spirit few writers can express. The result is that the readers are presented with characters with whom they can immediately identify, empathize and grow close to.

The storyline flows so easily and is so compelling, I found I didn't want to put the book down and didn't want it to end. Yet even after the cover is closed, the story lingers on and the thoughts it provokes turn over and over in our minds.

Put this on the top of your list for this summer's "must read"!