Lime Creek: Fiction [Deckle Edge] [Hardcover]

Joe Henry (Author)

Book Description

Release date: June 14, 2011

In this wonderful work of fiction, Joe Henry explores the complex relationship between a father and his sons, whose deep connections to one another, to the land, and to the creatures that inhabit it give meaning to their lives.

Spencer Davis, his wife, Elizabeth, and their sons, Luke, Whitney, and Lonny, work with horses and with their hands. They spend long relentless days cutting summer hay and feeding it to their cattle through fierce Wyoming winters. The family bears witness to the cycle of life, bringing foals into the world and deciding when to let a favored mare pass on to the next. As Luke grows older, falls in love, and begins to assert his independence, Spencer strives to impart the wisdom of this way of life to his headstrong son, whatever the cost.

Moving, powerful, and beautifully rendered, Lime Creek brings readers into the lives of this unforgettable family and into a world that, though often harsh, is lit by flashes of spectacular grace.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Songwriter and ex-rancher Henry's slight and earthy debut, a short volume of eight connected stories of the high plains, begins with Spencer Davis, "an interloper in a cowboy hat," who marries Elizabeth Putnam of Cambridge, Mass., and spirits her off to a Wyoming ranch to birth foals, put up the hay, and have kids—Lonny, Luke, and Whitney. In subsequent sketches, Spencer discusses his physical and psychological WWII scars with his three awed sons; Luke has to put down his old mare; and Whitney and Luke star on the high school gridiron. The Davis men prove to be resilient, tough, and stubborn, and also prone to bouts of lyrical fancy such as with Spencer's thoughts of Elizabeth as an "inland sea washing up and falling back and washing up again with the muffled tide-like stroke of her own intimate pulse." It's brooding and deadly serious in the way that fiction of the rustic West often is, but maybe too much so, as the reader is all too aware of what Henry strains for, but doesn't reach: the lean, mournful power of Annie Proulx. (June)
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Review

“[A] remarkable work….told in heart-wrenchingly beautiful prose….Brief but brilliant in the spirit of Paul Harding’s Tinkers.”
--Library Journal, starred review
 
“Lime Creek is a wonderful book, subtle in texture, rich in sorrow.  I hope it gets the readers it deserves.”
--Larry McMurtry, author of Lonesome Dove
 
“These are beautiful stories, bravely written, and at their best, intoxicating. Word by careful word, Joe Henry shows us a world, as experienced by these Wyoming ranchers, that is both ravishing and terrible in equal measure--and hardly bounded by human experience. Though the prose brings Faulkner to mind, I found myself thinking of Lime Creek as a kind of Dubliners for Wyoming.”
--David Wroblewski, author of The Story of Edgar Sawtelle
 
“Like water, like shelter, Lime Creek is the kind of story readers not only want, but need.  Joe Henry brings us an extended family of people and horses, terrible winters and beautiful land.  Moving and lyrical, with a strong, honest spine, Lime Creek is a gift to readers.”
--Amy Bloom, author of Where the God of Love Hangs Out

 
“Spare but inordinately rich, Lime Creek will remind you of what literature is supposed to be, and do.”
—Elizabeth Berg, author of Once Upon a Time, There Was You

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 160 pages
• Publisher: Random House (June 14, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400069416
• ISBN-13: 978-1400069415
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.8 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (34 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #767,484 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Get ready for Lime Creek June 22, 2011

By Loahna Chandler

Format:Hardcover

You must prepare yourself before reading Lime Creek.
First you must completely relax and have no distractions - no radio, no TV, no telephone or cell - maybe some music if you're selective. The words must be able to flow into you. The book must read you - not you read the book. And I promise you that somewhere on some page the book will grab you.
You must accept the fact that the story is a conversation, and just as you don't muddle up a dialog with a friend by vocalizing commas and quotation marks, and periods and dashes, neither will Lime Creek interrupt the flow of sending thoughts your way.
Just as you may not take a breath as you spew out word after word when getting said what you want to say to someone, Joe Henry puts his thoughts in the length they need for expression.
You need to be open to interruptions like when you're talking with someone and suddenly something catches your eye or ear and for a brief moment your concentration on what you were saying is broken by what you see or hear.
Don't expect all the answers to who, what, where, and why. You are not an investigative reporter but just someone sitting on the sidelines to appreciate and now and then interact.
There are lessons on these pages, but not necessarily ones you will recognize, let alone apply to yourself. Expect nothing - not what some other book you've read was like or what you think this one should be. Just let it converse with you, and when it becomes silent you will heave a sigh of relaxed contentment and put it on the shelf for another visit when time hangs heavy with the mundane and you want to enter a different world where you can just sit and listen.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars "This review is as personal as it gets..." September 19, 2011

By Michael Chandler

Format:Kindle Edition

To understand this book, it may help to understand Joe.

Of all the people I've met in my life, Joe is one of my five best friends. It started forty years ago, on a snow-choked dirt road outside of Aspen Colorado. My little boy and I were driving a farm tractor with a snow plow in front, playing actually, when we pulled up to Joe's cabin. We'd never before met, but that day changed everything.

The following spring, Joe found a tarpaper tack shed on the banks of the Roaring Fork River. He and I made it livable. Joe is a complex man of simple needs... complex until you breathe and listen to what he has to say. Joe still lives in this incredibly small home, inches away from the Roaring Fork. A giant of a man in a gnome's house.

Over the next thirty plus years, Joe Henry spent every night, from 10 or so till the sun rose, writing a magnificent story. Yes, every night, when he wasn't traveling to Nashville or Los Angeles to write lyrics for some of the music world's greatest performers. Every night, in a closed room no bigger than three phone booths, on a well-worn IBM Selectric typewriter. No computer. No word processor. No Internet. Just Joe sharing his heart, in a work he called Lime Creek.

He wrote not for praise, or money, but rather to share a piece of his heart with you, the reader. He does this unconditionally. If you like what he shares, fine. If you don't, that too is fine. For Joe doesn't wish to manipulate, or influence, or change you. If you find yourself changed after reading Lime Creek, that is a reflection of you and your openness to being exposed to something truly Novel. Joe may not think his work as unique, but others do. Over the 40 years I've known Joe, I don't see him as unique. He's just Joe. This said, I've never met anyone like him. Ever.

Some of the Amazon reviews ask for more of the Lime Creek story. There is more. Much more. Joe's ready, I think, to share it. This all depends on you, the reader, and you letting Random House know of your wishes.

One day, Joe Henry will be acknowledged as one of the best writers of our time. Lime Creek is just a very very small taste.

Who says so? Me. And more than a few others.

What would Joe think? He'd smile, and quickly change the subject with his question, "How are you doing?" And for the next eight hours, he'd sit and listen to your answer. Unless you need nine hours. He'd be happy with that too.

You're in the presence of a Master: Joe Henry.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Eloquent, simple, and profoundly moving. May 11, 2011

By Just_Karen VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

In Lime Creek, stories link together to tell the story of a ranch family in the bitter, beautiful landscape of Wyoming, where winter is its own sentient character.

We meet a young couple before the war in a charming tale of courtship called "Angels," and see their early life in "Family." We meet their children as young boys ("Tomatoes" and "Sleep"), emerging adolescents ("Hands", "Passages") and almost-men ("Love", "Yet Still of the Heart") who must face their own grief to grow up.

The voice is deceptively plain, authentic and western, but it offers insights that are poetic and philosophical. It's an interesting juxtaposition, leading to passages such as this:

"And besides I can't take my eyes off the candles, how wondrous a vision they are to me with their fragile light that for some reason makes me think of how aspen leaves tremble when the wind blows into them. And so perhaps if those leaves were to magically be transformed into something else, they'd become candlelight too because candlelight and aspen leaves both seem to tremble and quiver in just exactly the same way."

This is from "Sleep," a story about a community Christmas ritual that proves to be about so much more by book's end. If I have a complaint, it isn't in the writing or the characters, but in the method of revelation. So many important things are not mentioned until long after they are over.

Comparisons to Annie Proulx are inevitable since these stories share a common landscape. But Proulx focuses on the moments when life goes bad. Henry focuses on the moments when life goes right; when collisions of pain and bravery lead to beauty and joy, intertwined and "yet still of the heart."

Very highly recommended to fans of spare, poetic fiction.