The Mourners' Bench: A Novel [Hardcover]

Susan Dodd (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 22, 1998

Leandra lives a quiet, reclusive existence in a small town in North Carolina. Her solitude is broken when her sister's husband, Wim, appears on her doorstep -- a man she hasn't seen or heard from in over ten years, since a time that was steeped in tragedy. Now Wim has returned to Leandra -- his last wish -- because he is dying. Their story is rendered from both perspectives, a melody and countermelody of Wim's New England eloquence and Leandra's delicate Southern drawl. We gradually learn about their first meeting, when a young Leandra was summoned to New England to take care of her older sister, Pamela, bedridden from a complicated pregnancy and severely depressed. The tensions in Pamela and Win's passionate but troubled marriage contrast with the growing solace that Wim and Leandra find in one another, trapped in a house filled with anger, distrust, and sadness.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

On the day Leandra and her brother-in-law Wim made love for the first time, Pammy, her sister and his wife, committed suicide. Ten years later, Wim, terminally ill from brain cancer, appears on Leandra's doorstep in North Carolina, hoping to die in her arms. In the hands of a lesser writer, The Mourner's Bench might have ended up both melodramatic and sentimental; under Susan Dodd's careful pen, however, this tale of love, betrayal, and guilt overcomes its handicaps to become something more than the sum of its parts. Narrated in alternating chapters by the Southern-born Leandra and her New England paramour Wim, the story of Wim and Pammy's unhappy marriage, Pammy's difficult pregnancy, and the growing unspoken attraction between her younger sister and her husband unfolds, taking the reader back and forth in time as past events continue to intrude into present-day concerns. Wim might be dying, but the resounding aftershocks of Pammy's suicide have taught him and Leandra that gone does not necessarily mean forgotten. Indeed, the splicing of past and present brings Pammy back to life in a way, though her character is filtered through the memories of her sister and husband. Though death occupies the thoughts and actions of all three of the main characters, in the end, The Mourner's Bench is more about the living than the dead. As Wim and Leandra use what little time they have left to lay the ghosts of the past, they realize at last that "love makes a jumble of it all," and that it's never too late to find forgiveness.

From Publishers Weekly

In her previous work, Dodd's most successful characters have been people of simple backgrounds living obscure lives. She depicted even the eponymous protagonist of Mawmaw, the mother of the notorious James boys, as a strong and stoic backwoods matriarch. She sets most of this new novel near Dismal Swamp, N.C., the home of Leandra, a young woman who fixes broken dolls, which she lines up on a (highly symbolic) mourner's bench in her one-room shack. Juxtaposed to that provincial community is the sophisticated background of 54-year-old Wim Cantwell, a teacher at an elite Massachusetts prep school. Wim and Leandra haven't seen each other since a sexual tryst 10 years earlier, after which they discovered that Pammy Jo, Leandra's sister and Wim's wife, had committed suicide. Now Wim comes to Leandra's cabin to spend his last days before he succumbs to a brain tumor. Dodd recounts this doomed love story in the alternate voices of the soft-spoken Southern countrywoman and the buttoned-down Yankee, emphasizing the cultural contrasts between them in terms of language, weather, food, architecture and social customs. A third factor enters their relationship when Wim is befriended by Branch Goodlin, Leandra's former beau, who has never stopped loving her. Together, Leandra and Branch help Wim to die. The emotionally charged tone of this account, and the prevalence of such words as "poignant," "melancholy" and "sorrowful" deprive the narrative of any ironic distance. There are echoes of Reynolds Price in Leandra's folksy talk, and even Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome comes to mind in Leandra's former role of caretaker to her invalid sister. But Dodd works her material distinctively, and her message of salvation through the power of love is moving.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow; 1st edition (July 22, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0688157998
• ISBN-13: 978-0688157999
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,418,261 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars I've Read Better Fiction On My Cereal Box..., November 15, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: The Mourners' Bench: A Novel (Paperback)

This book was a dreadful disappointment to me. A friend at work recommended it highly. I really enjoyed it until I reached the beginning of Chapter 1. Then things got difficult.

My main complaint about the book (besides the fact that it moves slowly and is difficult to slog through) is about the characters... they were dreadfully false. Wim is a sorry sack of a man, who gives up what little promise he has to marry Pamela (the most dour and ill-tempered woman he could find). Then after she dies, and Wim contracts a terminal illness, he naturally flees to Pam's nearest relative: Leandra.

The book's story line is gut-wrenchingly, heart-sickeningly, bone-crushingly melodramatic, and the dialogue (esp. Leandra's Southern "drawl") is stilted and forced.

I realize that this is a mean and biting review... but this was one of the worst five books I have ever read. I had to respond.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A powerful book of love and human kindness, November 7, 1999

By 

AH Smith (Abingdon, VA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Mourners' Bench: A Novel (Hardcover)

The Mourners' Bench is a "must read" for anyone who has ever loved another, nursed someone who is dying or just wants to feel something good way down deep. The sad parts of the book are sad in a good way-the way that lets you feel how powerful love can be and how easily human kindness eases all passings.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Extraordinarily well written - but slow moving, November 14, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Mourners' Bench: A Novel (Hardcover)

I read this as part of a book discussion group - we all agreed that the prose is very well written and seems to move you along effortlessly. We also agreed that the characters of Wim and Leandra are passive and passionless. The only character with passion is Pammy, who has a tragic ending. Not a sad book by any means, haunting but in a colorless way.