Customer Reviews

Marchlands

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In sparse, yet poetic prose, first time novelist, Karla Kuban tells of love and a secret so dark that it has kept the members of a family strangers for years and threatens, in its retelling, to rip the family apart altogether. With her 17-hand, part Clydesdale, Pablo, 15-year-old Sophie Behr rides the thousand acres in southeastern Wyoming on which her family settled generations ago to raise sheep. Her best friends are her horse, and Demetrio, the handsome 18-year-old sheepherder from Guadalajara who has fathered the baby she now carries. But all is not idyllic. Sophie's mother, a God-loving hypocrite of gargantuan proportions, drags Sophie before the town pastor for her indiscretions and screams at her to beg his forgiveness. Sophie sees the man of God this way: "Pastor Fabila's face is bunched up and pained-looking as if he has gas." Sophie's cat-torturing older brother is in Vietnam; sometimes Sophie hopes he won't return. And buried within the seams of the story is a family secret so powerful that 11 years ago, when Sophie was only 4, it caused her father to leave home. When her mother's cruelty causes Sophie to seek out her absent father somewhere in the mountains of Colorado, she discovers that sometimes the truth hurts more than lies ever will. I couldn't help but love Sophie, and root for her, and hope that novelist Kuban will write a sequel to this compelling tale of love and intrigue.

Most good literature requires a reader's maturity and intelligence to arrive at certain conclusions without being told everything. Thinking, relating, concluding, going forward. Marchlands is not so much a plot novel as it is a novel of language and internal strife. It tells of Sophie's survival. The reader can come to his or her own conclusions about moral rights and wrongs, but in the end can the reader relate to the existential questions and answers of Sophie's life as she changes?

Karla Kuban reinvents the coming-of-age tale with a fresh purity and directness in this compelling narrative that follows pregnant 15 year old Sophie Behr on her quest to uncover and understand the events that drove her father away from the family. Kuban crafts a powerful story which is at once a spare and evocative portrait of the threshold crossing from adolescence to adulthood. And although set in the 1960's, the book's themes of accountability and forgiveness are contemporary in the most profound sense. Juxtaposed to the deeply complex characters of Sophie and her parents is the wild simple beauty of the Southwest - which Kuban describes in extraordinary evocations of landscape. In her use of imagery she has attained a genuine lyric freedom, and creates a vivid sense of place. As one might expect of a Pushcart Prize Winner, Kuban writes with a beautiful eye for detail and a poetic phrasing. But what truly sets Kuban apart is her fascination with those areas at the boundaries of human nature. Her ability to unflinchingly include the shadow side of her characters, without a moralizing or judgmental tone, gives a depth to her writing which is rare. Although she has been compared to writers as diverse as Charles Frazier, Cormac McCarthy and Pam Houston, Kuban's voice is an original. I highly recommend this book, which is ultimately about both the journey and the destination.

Marchlands is an inspiring book that shines light on the resiliance of a person. Although I felt this book did unrealistically portray Sophie as a responsible adult when she is only fifteen years old. I found it difficult to believe Sophie is mature enough to do accomplish things with such ease when many adults have to struggle with the same responsiblities. I did enjoy this book because Sophie's life could be considered average. Sophie faced many instances in her life that made her human and endearring. Teenage pregnancy and abandonment are just a few of the problems she had. This is a great book if a person wants to read about the survival of the human spirit.

I read Hal Espen's review of Marchlands in the August issue of Outdoor Magazine. All I can say is that this girl-woman is brave and honorable, and I have to agree with Mr. Espen one hundred percent: "This graceful first novel is the story of an eventful year in the life of its tough-minded narrator, 15 year-old Sophie Behr . . . this young woman's self-possession and keen awareness of the beauty and strangeness of life carry her through her many trials. Kuban does marvelous but unflashy things with the prose in this book." Agree, agree, agree. Tough, sensitive, wisdom beyond her years, and in a first-person voice that knocked my socks off.

Marchlands passes the test of all great books. It leaves you wanting for more - much more - when the last page is turned. Great scenery, great characters and a heartfelt story. Loved it! Some advice to Ms. Kuban: Hurry your butt up and write another book. I can't wait!

This is Kuban's only novel. A pity. She has carefully chiseled a world I knew nothing about, a somber, beautiful life both disturbing and golden. When I finished this one I thought, oh how I wanted more. She captures some of Hemingway's laconic stilchomythia, yet this is Kuban's own true rhythm. This book is not too dotted with characters (well formed). Kuban truly, more than anything, captures the place, and Sophie's heart (her complexities). Kuban has also captured my heart. Need I write what the book is about? I see a few of the other reviews here (both media and customers) have summarized. One thing I'll say: Sophie (the main character) is both girl and woman, perfectly executed. How this thin line was walked so elegantly by the writer, I don't know. I don't know how she did it. But she did. I'm devoted.

I found this book to be one of the best of the year. Is this woman (the author, Kuban) on the brink of fame? She should be. She writes of the lonely, the sensitive, the hateful. She writes with a lyrical, original voice. I read a lot of books. Some good, some downright terrible. This book, this one was better than good, and I was sorry and sad when it ended.

I bought this book thinking that it sounded interesting and different. I did not count on falling in love with Sophie.....

Where does she go from here? How does she handle it all? I wish I could be there to help her, and to learn from her.

"Marchlands" is one of the most beautifully written novels I have ever read in a long time. It has thoughts & language that flow so naturally, as though Sophie, herself were there with you.

This story was written very astoundingly accurate to the goings on of every day life. A near carbon-copy of what you could almost believe were actual events.

However, this story was written in a style unlike the traditional quotations used to capture what each individual is saying & so I found it a little hard to follow & often had to re-read paragraphs from to time to time to sort out who was saying what.

I also found that due to the realism & some of the subject matter, mainly the sexual content & animal exploitation that takes place, I feel that this novel is mistakenly catigorized as teen fiction when honestly, it appears to fall more so under adult.