Customer Reviews

Little Chapel on the River: A Pub, a Town and the Search for What Matters Most

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

"Little Chapel on the River", a delightful book by Gwendolyn Bounds, is a story of three families....the Guinans, who run the local pub and store, the extended Guinan family (patrons, mostly) of Garrison, New York and the family of the author, herself. It's a "feel good" book in the best possible sense.

Having been displaced by the attacks on 9/11, Wendy and her girlfriend, Kathryn, are introduced to the tiny hamlet of Garrison just across the river from West Point. Within a short time, Wendy has begun to make friends at Guinan's and ends up being a part of the entourage that makes its way into Guinan's each morning and evening. Along the way, the author finds more than a few things about herself as she begins to piece together what's missing from her life.

Bounds is enticingly descriptive about the characters she meets at Guinan's. Some, naturally, are small town skeptics regarding this new face in the crowd but without giving much more than an inch, Wendy finds herself enmeshed in their lives as they become her new friends, far from the roaring din of Manhattan. There's Fitz, a former U.S. federal marshal and Vietnam war veteran who likes to butt heads with Dan Donnelly, the "limousine liberal" lawyer. Jane and Mary Ellen form a duo of town females who help out at the pub and enjoy Guinan's to the fullest. Their loyalty is never questioned. The list of patrons goes on. The real story, though, centers around the Guinan family....Jim, an emigré from Ireland and his four children. This is indeed a family that despite its ups and downs is a close-knit unit that takes care of its own...and while they're doing so, take care of everyone else, too. Having been drawn into the life of a small, warm place, Wendy, Kathryn and their "bonus puppy", Dolly, decide to make Garrison their home. Even Governor George Pataki has a cameo role in this book.

The author keeps a good pace throughout and one gets a terrific insider's view of life at Guinan's. To say "Little Chapel on the River" has a happy ending does not in any way betray or diminish Bounds's writing. Rather it enhances it, I suspect, because goodness begets goodness and there's plenty of it here. One hint that might help the reader enjoy the book even more... most of the "action" takes place in the hours of darkness, so reading this book at night gives it more meaning and consequence.

I applaud Gwendolyn Bounds and her "Little Chapel on the River". Guinan's is a place that time has not so much passed by, but preserved. The author has done a magnificent job in relating the tales that go on in this little place on the Hudson.

Sometimes Life throws us a curve, and we land somewhere we didn't expect to be. And that place turns out to be the home we should have been looking for all along. That's what happened to NYC residents Wendy Bounds and Kathryn Kranhold in the aftermath of 9/11. Their post-traumatic experiences eventually put them in Garrison, a small Hudson River settlement 50 miles north of Grand Central Station. What makes Garrison most memorable is a combination store-and-bar called Guinan's (GUY-nenz). Named after proprietor Jim Guinan, the building serves as a newspaper outlet for rail commuters, a refreshment stand for thirsty West Pointers, a monthly mecca of Irish ballads for local musicians, and the social center of the community. How this family business got started and keeps on going is the real story, and it comes to light now because Wendy is a Wall Street Journal reporter. Her journalistic instinct led her to take notes and record conversations; her heart led her to a real estate agent to make permanent her connection with the people and the area. The CHEERS theme song got it right: You want to be where everyone knows your name. A warm, beautiful, compelling, and true example of sense of place.

This book's message reminds me of a song on Jack Johnson's newest CD. In the song, "Breakdown," he sings, "I hope this old train breaks down. Then I could take a walk around and see what there is to see. And time is just a melody. All the people in the street walk as fast as their feet can take them. I just roam through town."

In this beautifully written tale Bounds teaches us that it's OK to roam because it's then that we might just find what we're looking for.

It took something as dramatic as the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to get Bounds to realize this. It was then that she moved from lower Manhattan a block from the Trade Center to a tiny town up the Hudson River where life is more like the way it once was. People take time to get to know -- and help -- their neighbors.

Like so many small towns, a chapel is the main gathering place, though this one isn't the typical house of worship. It's a bar on the river where the town's characters gather night after night to trade stories, jokes and barbs and even find support. And when their chapel is threatened, they come together to help protect it, including Bounds.

I'm willing to bet that this book will make most readers remember a simpler time, and perhaps encourage them to seek those days one more time.

I like the "come find yourself in a small town" genre and I like the Guinan family the author writes about. I even love the Wall Street Journal, where she is a writer on staff. We lived in nearby New Jersey when the terrorist attacks happened and lost some friends and neighbors, so I've lived through a bit of what she went through. But...the book was missing something for me. Even though Gwendolyn Bounds writes in detail about the pub on Garrison's Landing and the family who runs it, I just didn't feel the connection to the characters--she wrote more matter of factly than from the heart. I understood that she cared deeply about them, but she didn't make me care. She did make me curious and maybe I'll go to Guinan's someday. Well, that's my take on it. I'd give the book 3.5 stars, and recommend the book with the aforementioned reservations.

In this book, Wendy Bounds does two things really well that are really hard. First, she writes about her friends and neighbors with both clarity and kindness, capturing their voices, their struggles and strengths--as well as their faults--with grace and humor. You can picture vividly the people she meets as a newcomer to a small town and, as she did, you grow to appreciate and then like them a lot. Her own story of her life after September 11 is compelling enough, but she includes it modestly with that of her new extended multigenerational Irish-American family.
Second, she describes a place - Garrison, New York, on the Hudson River - that is hard to describe without banalities, but she does it. It's unique, it's beautiful, it's historic - somehow she says all that and more and it sounds much better. Anyone who has gazed at the Hudson - perhaps at any river - and wished they could convey how it makes them feel will love this book.

If you're the type of person that yearns for a crisp fall day in America or yearns for escape to a quieter, slower pace-you will love this book.

I cried on page 72, and I laughed uncontrollably out loud on page 265.

If you think that America has lost its way, it hasn't. Little Chapel on the River takes us to a place where time forgot...and it still lives.

This book details several themes:

1. The genuine kindness of neighbors (yes it still exists in America)
2. A search for belonging and community
3. The struggle of small business-we love it and yet it can sometimes take over your life. A blessing and sometimes a curse.
4. America itself. If this isn't the essence of what our forefathers fought for, and risked our lives for, I don't know what is.

Jim Guinan arrived in America from Ireland in the 1950's and eventually opened up a general store & tiny pub (Guinan's) affixed to the store in the tiny hamlet on the Hudson River in Garrison, NY.

Guinan's becomes a symbol for the themes in the book.
Struggle, warmth, life, loss, and community.
And Jim Guinan as its proprietor becomes a friend to all without baggage (Bounds says it all as you `check your life a the door') including the Governor of New York, George Pataki, as he began coming to Guinan's well before any knew Pataki.

As an author myself, Wendy Bounds has a way with words that I envy...an amazing flair for texture that makes a book truly vibrant as in vibrato.

Here are some of my favorites:

"Snow in the city is beautiful for the first few hours. Then traffic churns it to thick black slush while the merchants and snowplows engage in warfare, one shoveling snow onto the street while the other shoves it back toward the sidewalk.

"then comes the high-pitched stinging along the tracks as if thousands of tiny pushpins are being sprinkled upon the rails...and then the metal beast is upon them, white headlights shining like four eyes, earlier prey in her belly."

"...the river's blood made rich from dueling..."

"When the Irishman finishes [singing Danny Boy], his voice kind of drifts off out the open window. For a moment, there's only the soft patter of rain on the roof..."

"...bit by bit the human duct tape that keeps this place together tightens its hold."


If you loved the texture of the writing in The Bridges of Madison County, you'll love this book.

If you long for the simple things in life: good friendship, good coffee, a sweet song make your skin tingle...you should read this book.

This is a book that becomes a part of you. Reading for the soul. Reading for the senses.

Although I now live in Tennessee, I grew up in Garrison, NY and went to school with the Guinan's back in the early 70's. They were nothing but a loving family and the author has certainly described them to a T....Guinan's store was the usual "hang out" for a few of us that hung around together. There are so many memories as I turn each page - a beautiful book about a caring family.

Gwendolyn Bounds does a beautiful job telling the story of her time spent at Guinan's Pub. She guides us down her path of self-discovery without any confusion and with vivid details that almost turn the pages for you. Gwendolyn said this about Guinan's, "Later, I will come to believe that this place steals time, because of some magic grip it holds over those inside." (p. 55). The book does this as well; you become so engrossed in the story of this magical place that you can hardly put the book down, that is except to tell someone else about it.

If there is ever a book that just speaks to the heart ~~ this one would be it. It came highly recommended by my dad who knows that I am always interested in reading books about things that matters. This book is about what really matters.

Sometimes life happens and all of a sudden, you're one of thousands of people fleeing the terror of two burning buildings and broken dreams and sore hearts. Unable to return home to retrieve personal belongings for several days (or months, you just don't know) ~~ you find yourself bouncing between temporary homes wearing borrowed clothings and trying to find the balance between your current life and what has been before the terrorist attacks of 9/11. This is what this author found herself in ~~ and somehow, through a friend's urging, she finds herself standing in front of a small-town pub with her partner, and coming inside for a drink. This is no ordinary pub. It is Guinan's.

Guinan's is situated on the next to the last stop of the commuter train in Garrison, New York, just across from West Point, the United States Military Academy. Wendy Bounds, a journalist at one of the nation's premier newspapers, The Wall Street Journal, finds herself changing her pace and slowing down to a small-town life and finding what matters in this little pub.

This is a beautifully-written book. It is a book that makes you stop and think. It is a book that makes you long for those days of when life matters, not the race. It is about people who live in small towns. It is about everyone of us who are always searching for what really matters. It is about those of us who have always known what really matters in life. Bounds has touched on all of these during her personal journey of her heart.

She writes beautifully of a special place that holds a special charm in lots of people's lives. She writes of the locals fighting to keep Guinan's the way it is and touches lightly on the creeping urban sprawl that is always threatening to bring Starbucks and malls to beautiful remote areas. She writes of the people who frequents Guinan's and call it their second home ~~ and the way her pen flows over them, you feel as if you know them and that you're sitting right there, knocking back a beer and talking with them. They are you and me with all of our foibles and follies. But they're at Guinan's ~~ one of the last few places in the country that is just a mom and pop business.

If you're searching for something to read that is meaningful and thoughtful ~~ you will not be disappointed in this book. It is eloquently written and it is also a personal journey ~~ the author is gracious to share it with you. So kick back with a glass of your favorite beverage and enjoy it. And be prepared for some soul-searching questions of your own.

12-27-05

I really don't know the differences in all the terms where people meet to have a drink or two. But I do know when a writer captures as best they can a feeling that you wish you were there.
I saw ths book mentioned in the Wall Sreet Jounal and trusted their judgement in kinda' recommendind one of their writer's work. This is a fun book to read. Part current events, part regional history, some class warfare and a whole lot of drinking and talking. As someone who has spent a good number of years in bars you really know the times when you need friends, old and new, to make life livable. This tale has a few surprising twists that you don't expect and I almost feel a reader needs a sequal some time down the road.
I remember years ago when reading the Hobbit triolgies, that I wanted to find a spot like the Four Farthings. A place at a crossroads where people told stories sang and had a hell of time.This pub this writer these people capture a little bit of that magic
I lent my copyof Little Chapel to my neighbor and probably willre-read this book over a few cold ones this winter.