The Natural History of Uncas Metcalfe: A Novel [Paperback]

Betsey Osborne (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 17, 2007

"Betsey Osborne . . . has pulled off an astonishing feat. She's written a compelling, elegant tale of nuance and loss with the confidence of a fiction veteran."
---The Philadelphia Inquirer

 

"Osborne writes effortlessly and wisely, plumbing the troubled depths of the seemingly unruffled surface of 'ordinary' life. . . . This is an auspicious debut by a new and very promising writer."
---The Providence Journal
 
"[A] graceful minuet of a novel . . . Osborne's concerns are gratifyingly complex, the predicaments she orchestrates unusual and suspenseful, her humor lithe, and her insights  are keen and provocative."
---Booklist
 
"Writing with the precise and haunting tones of Virginia Woolf, Betsey Osborne creates a compelling a world . . . Uncas Metcalfe is a character for the ages."
---Stephen J. Dubner, author of the New York Times bestseller Freakonomics 
 
Uncas Metcalfe is a sixty-five-year-old botany professor from a once prosperous central New York town, whose habitat is changing much too quickly: his wife is ill, his daughter has returned home, and memories of an almost forgotten infidelity have resurfaced. Uncas is rooted in a life of plants and manners. When his routine is upended by the menacing demands of a former student, Uncas finds his comfortably obstinate nature at odds with his family's growing impatience and a newfound, terrifying uncertainty.
            The Natural History of Uncas Metcalfe follows an unforgettable hero as he struggles to right himself and adapt to changing expectations, even as he approaches the end of his life. Beautifully wrought and wonderfully imagined, the Metcalfe family will linger in your imagination long after the last page.
 

 

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The hero of Osborne's incisive debut novel is a glacier of a man. Rooted in his small upstate New York hometown of Sparta, like the five generations of Metcalfes before him, 65-year-old botany professor Uncas is a man for whom change is not an option. Having achieved a "resilient stasis," Uncas is as unwilling to accept the "physical upheaval of the heart of Sparta" as he is the "big-city prices for glorified bread" at the new bagel shop; so when Margaret, Uncas's wife of 40 years, suffers a leg injury that keeps her bedridden, Uncas loses the only buffer between his outmoded worldview and reality. The impact of his chronic stoicism on his loved ones reveals itself to Uncas when the younger of his two daughters, Fauna Fletcher, returns to Sparta with her husband, Doug, and their three children. An unlikely friendship with a rebellious teenage girl and the threat of a disturbed former student also serve to bring Uncas closer to understanding his family and world. Though Uncas's dedication to tradition can seem extreme, Osborne establishes a genuine sense of history and caring in Uncas's familial relationships with just a few well-chosen words. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Osborne's graceful minuet of a novel, her first, is set in the 1980s in a small, floundering town in upstate New York. Uncas Metcalfe, a botany professor famous for his strictness, is proud of occupying land his family has held since the 1600s, but he has grown rigid and resistant to life. When things turn chaotic after his wife is injured in an accident, and his youngest child, Fauna, pregnant with her fourth child, moves back to Sparta with her out-of-work husband, Uncas thinks he "might have fared better as a tree." Already unhappy over how much the town has changed, worried about his marriage, and blind to others' needs and preoccupations, Uncas is unprepared for the bizarre and threatening behavior of a disgruntled former student. Osborne's concerns are gratifyingly complex, the predicaments she orchestrates unusual and suspenseful, her humor lithe, and her insights into what signifies strength and what indicates weakness are keen and provocative, adding up to an empathic and finely modulated drama reminiscent of works by Gail Godwin, Jane Hamilton, and Anne Tyler. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin (April 17, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312342780
• ISBN-13: 978-0312342784
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,955,463 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hard to Believe This is a First Novel, May 5, 2006

By 

Philly Reader (Philadelphia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Natural History of Uncas Metcalfe: A Novel (Hardcover)

I truly enjoyed this book. It captures a man absorbed in his own reality and caught up in an environment of his own making. The messages are subtle, the characters believable, and the setting very Richard Russo in the use of small town New York. This book lacks the high level of tortured introspection so often found in modern American literature. The ability to deal with issues of relationship, aging, sexual orientation, and small town dynamics in a subtle and convincing way made this a great read and a book that stayed with me long after I put it down. I look forward to Ms. Osborne's next book.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Guidance From the Past? Maybe Not..., July 14, 2006

By 

Jeanne Friedman (Berkeley, California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Natural History of Uncas Metcalfe: A Novel (Hardcover)

Uncas Metcalf is the product of generations of correct-thinking, upstanding and ultra-responsible men and women. The past weighs heavily on him and we see him coping with people and challenges unknown to his ancestors. Uncas often refuses to see that which does not fit into his worldview. As the world pushes in, he bends to accommodate new challenges by finding the source for necessary approval in the past. When it works, he is charming. To his own amazement, he can empathize with a young woman whose demeanor and life-preferences are far from his own. After all, good manners and a strong handshake in a young woman are more important than her combat boots. But his search for references and approval in the past doesn't always work. His background and secure place in society has not prepared him for personal malevolence directed toward him, therefore he doesn't recognize it. The author leaves some of his motivation open to further debate - particularly as it pertains to aging. She directly address and closes that loop for some members of the family - an increasingly frail wife and an adult daughter who is both a responsible mother herself, and a young daughter held at emotional bay by her father. For Uncas himself, we are left to wonder about the inter-relationship between his reliance on role models from the past and his ability to evaluate contemporary events. How much of his failure to understand threatening behavior is the result of his age, not his background? As WE get older, are we doomed to exchange analytical skills for codes and memories of "appropriate" social behavior by our parents and grandparents? In this excellent novel, the author poses and leaves us with that thorny question.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Loved this book, June 10, 2006

By 

Smoke "Portland fan" (Oregon) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Natural History of Uncas Metcalfe: A Novel (Hardcover)

I loved this book. Beautifully written, it's hard to put down, and touches on family dynamics, a scary stalker, small town life, and with all that is very very funny. I recommend it highly.