Customer Reviews

The Mending String

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Pastor Clayton Loverage is facing significant challenges at his church, including a growing number of parishioners who want a more contemporary service and a manipulative church board member at the helm of a power struggle within the congregation.

But the greatest challenge for Loverage, a widower, is the one that lives under his roof: his youngest child, Ellen. His older children have left home to make their own lives, leaving him alone with a teenage daughter he cannot understand, cannot communicate with, and cannot mold into his idea of what a Christian girl should be. That's double or maybe triple trouble for this pastor and father, because he's also a nationally known parenting expert who disseminates his nuggets of wisdom about family life at conferences and seminars throughout the country.

Things heat up when Ellen --- who has been furtively breaking into her English teacher's house and reading for several hours each school-day afternoon --- begins spending time with a classmate named Osvaldo, whose brothers are known criminals. But Osvaldo is as unlike his brothers as Ellen is unlike her own siblings, and in their differentness they find that they are kindred spirits. Their relationship is innocent enough, but when Ellen's illegal entry into her teacher's house and Osvaldo's brothers' crime spree intersect, danger, guilt and a whole lot of explaining result. Oh, and a decades-old secret about the good Pastor Loverage comes to light.

Though its plot is compelling, THE MENDING STRING is primarily a character-driven story, and a beautiful one at that. It was selected as the best "first novel" at the 2005 Christy Awards, and with good reason. Unfortunately, the author, a retired chemist, passed away several weeks before the Christy finalists were announced and several months before his book was named the winner. I can only hope that his readers let him know what a remarkable achievement he had accomplished.

Ellen is a particularly well-drawn character, not the usual rebellious young woman who populates CBA novels. Don't let the back-cover copy fool you; there she is described as "headstrong," but she's a far and welcome cry from the cookie-clutter, petulant, annoying, "Can't we just get rid of her now?" female characters described as headstrong in many other Christian novels. No, Ellen is real. When you get to the part where she's about to be interrogated by the police, you'll see what I mean. (By this point in the story, though, you should already love this girl to pieces, if for no other reason than the earlier rock-fishing incident. That's right --- rock fishing.)

The mending that takes place in Ellen and Clayton's relationship is no sappy, fairy-tale, father-daughter reconciliation. As a chemist, Cliff Coon would be well aware of not just the volatile reactions caused by certain elements but also of the more subtle results of the combination of distinctively different chemicals. It's that subtlety in the Loverages' relationship that sets Coon apart as an author and THE MENDING STRING as a book.

Simply put, THE MENDING STRING is one of the loveliest books released in the Christian market in recent years. It's sad that we will never know what other stories may have been taking shape in Coon's mind and spirit at the time of his death. But we have this one, and it's a story meant to be savored long after it has been read.

The Mending String by Cliff Coon features strong writing, a believable but not predictable plot, and interesting if flawed characters. There's the teacher who had "forgotten how to smile" ; the teenaged daughter who was determined to be her own person (creating an awkward situation for her pastor-father, who also leads seminars on parenting); her widowed father who had some church members demanding change; the church members with their own agenda; and a sub-plot of a mother trying to keep a step ahead of her criminal sons while building a new life for herself. The reading never lags and is a pleasure as well as a worthwhile book for fiction readers who appreciate substance. The story flows well right to the satisfying and realistic conclusion.

Mr. Coon has written a wonderful novel, with characters so well developed that you not only get to know them, but you care about them, hope for their future, and cheer for! Perhaps Mr. Coon used his relationships with his six children to help build the main characters, but Pastor Loverage and his daughter Ellen are unique in their own right. His characters are seekers, of themselves, of truth, of restitution and reconciliation, and most of all of trust in God. If you've ever wondered where God was in a situation, let this novel help you to see His hand even when it's hidden from your view.

this was WONDERFULLY written...captures the imagination and touchingly/sometimes frighteningly realistic in its depiction of characters.

coon's use of irony, mystery, compassion, keeps you from putting the book down. you have to find out what's coming next. and you're never disappointed!

i thoroughly enjoyed THE MENDING STRING and can't wait for his next novel to come out.

** spoiler alert ** Can you say "legalism"? I have to be careful or I could fall for the legalistic trap myself, causing me and others to shy away from God instead of drawing closer to Him.

So far, this is a really great book. I feel the frustration of both Ellie, the daughter and Clayton, her father. She was expected to behave almost like a soldier in her father's "army." Having meals prepared and ready for him at exactly the same designated times every day. Setting the table with the silverware just so. On the other hand, he tried to extract a decent conversation out of her as she replied almost in monosyllable words. He'd scold her for using his recliner when she couldn't understand why she couldn't sit in it to read when he wasn't home. He saw that as an act of disobedience. When she ran upstairs so he wouldn't catch her in his chair, he called it deceit. He pointed out all her sins. I can see both their points of view. When he said he would call animal control when the dog of a neighbor who wasn't home got loose, she went out to bring the dog home, protecting the neighborhood children from a possible attack from the Rottweiler. He challenged her repeatedly throughout the week, accusing her of making him look bad in front of the officer, a man in his church.

Though retaining its exciting pace throughout most of the book, it failed to keep its edge to the end. I was looking for a real resolution to the rift between Clay and Ellie while at the same time, a resolution in the father's self-imposed regulations in his relationship with Father God. He learned to spend time with Ellie and that in part, moved him in the right direction in his relationship with her, however, it is not mentioned how or whether he affected changes in his rigid expectations of her and of himself.

The story didn't wrap up tightly enough. Otherwise, it is worth the read.

The book had wonderful, building action. There were clear moments of suspense and I enjoyed reading this book. However, in the grand scheme of things, it was average. Compared to other books I have read of the same genre, I was not overly impressed. It is a good book for a one-time reading.

I was very suprised by how this book shaped up. For me, it started a bit slow but gradually built into a poignant and beautiful story. After reading the last words of the book, my reaction was "Wow". A must read!

This book is well written and comfortable to read. The characters are developed so well you feel like you have met them. I like that they are real, too. So often christian characters are given to "saintly'ness rather than being average people with real problems. Not in this book.

The Reverend Clayton Loverage and his youngest daughter Ellen live together in their home, the reverend a widower and 16-year-old Ellen counting the days until she graduates from high school and can leave home. He exists for his church and his position at church; she lives to read, and escapes to her English teacher's house and uses a hidden key to gain entrance, read and listen to music.

Then a faction at the church decides it's time for the pastor to retire, or find another congregation. And Ellen finds a photograph in her teacher's house, a photograph that turns out to be her father as a teenager. And then a book of photographs. And then a binder. And the Loverage's placid life begins to unravel.

Cliff Coon's "The Mending String" is all about relationships - between a pastor and his daughter, between a teenage girl and a new friend, old but not forgotten loves, dysfunctional families, and church families whose attitudes border on ruthlessness to achieve their goals. Coons mixes it all up into a extremely satisfying story that contains enough twists and turns to keep the reading guessing as to how it will end.

The characters are real and recognizable. The unbending pastor, the daughter who loves her father but yearns to escape, the conniving congregational members convinced they have the good of the church at heart, even the English teacher who has not gotten over her first love - the characters are drawn true. The heart of the story is the father and daughter. As their carefully constructed worlds collapse around them, Clayton and Ellen begin to reach toward each other.

Published in 2004, The Mending String was nominated for and received the Christy Award for best first novel. Coons, however, died a few weeks before the awards program. He left this novel as his sole work of fiction, and a fitting tribute it is.