Customer Reviews

Red Hook Road

5 star:		(29)
4 star:		(26)
3 star:		(17)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

Red Hook Road is a beautifully composed piece of domestic fiction, one without flowery prose but clear and precise language which speaks plainly but with great sensitivity and empathy towards perhaps the most tragic of human experiences ~ the death of a loved one.

Ayelet Waldman has masterfully given voice to grief and recovery by way of in-depth psychological study which really gets under the skin and deep below the surface to expose the raw nerve of human emotion. With her skillfully wrought, omniscient third-person narrative, the reader is taken straight to the hearts of the story's seven main characters, each deeply and painfully stricken by the accidental death of two dearly loved family members. The seven represent two different families in a small coastal community in Maine, one Jewish and of privilege, the other Protestant and hard-scrabble. The Copaken/Kimmelbrods and the Tetherlys are each dominated by two strong willed and very controlling women, Iris Copaken and Jane Tetherly, the mothers upon whom much of the novel pivots.

The relationships between these seven main characters create the plot issues and conflicts which make up the story line. Although much of the focus seems to fall on Iris and Jane, it is the elder of the story, the deeply-grounded and wise father of Iris, Emil Kimmelbrod, who really drives the plot to ultimate resolution. His presence is subtle but authoritative and provides the story with complexity and depth. Mr. Kimmelbrod is a world-renowned maestro of violin, a Jewish refugee from WWII Prague, a survivor of the Holocaust which decimated most of his family. He has seen much death in his life and experienced much loss. Mr. Kimmelbrod brings a philosophical counterpoint to the novel which is moving and rich. It is a philosophy not only built upon his many life experiences but upon music, wherein music becomes an expression of life and of death. The message is nuanced and sure and I was deeply moved by its beauty and relevance.

It is also music that seems to give unique structure to this wonderfully expressive novel. Like a great piece of music, Red Hook Road is solidly built between a powerful prologue and an equally powerful coda. Within its body lie the themes and variations, the rhythms and tones of familiar human experience. I was particularly reminded of Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross's five stages of death: denial and isolation, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance, as could be applied to the grief of the novel's main characters. The reader will no doubt feel great empathy toward them. Each is fully developed and highly identifiable.

The story itself is highly atmospheric and very engaging with a denouement which is commanding, even mythical. It is sure to produce a lasting effect for the reader. I have found many passages throughout Red Hook Road which are so beautifully stated and unforgettable; they speak to me of experience and emotion I myself have known and I have marked and reread them several times. I applaud Ayelet Waldman for capturing these universal experiences and emotions so precisely, so eloquently, so memorably.

Amazon's guide to reviews includes: "What would you have wanted to know before you purchased the product?" I would have wanted to know that, despite the cover and the description, this is more than just a chic book!

At the outset, a bride and groom die in an accident within an hour of their wedding. The remainder of the book is watching their two families deal, cope and try to adjust to the loss of the two young people who were the apples of their families' eyes.

About a quarter through, I thought "Is this all there is? Just mourning for a few hundered pages?" As difficult as that sounds, Ms Waldman really pulls it off. The account is captivating.

The family of the bride are New Yorkers, or as they are known in the tiny Maine village of Red Hook, "from aways". The mother's family ahs been summering so long there that she believes she and her family are an integral part of the fabric of the town. The groom's family are year 'rounders. His mother cleans the homes of the "from aways" (including the bride's) and maintains them during the winter months.

The book follows the summer immediately following the tragedy and the next few thereafter.

Iris, the bride's mother is the focal character, although her husband, father and other daughter also get plenty of focus. On the other side, Jane, the groom's mother and Matt, his brother, are also tracked. Each deals with the loss in his or her different way. Because Red Hook is so small and the families both integral to its character as natives or from aways, the families constantly interact. Their interactions weave through the individuals' stories. The interactions are not only between the individuals, but also between the two very different cultures from which they start. Jim and Becca, the couple were a bridge between the two, but are now gone.

This is a fine account of loss, mourning, coping and trying to heal by several different people who come from distinct cultures.

The writing is extremely good. The characters all have depth and, as one would expect, are seen at both their strongest and weakest. The emotions in this book are raw and always seemingly on the surface, yet the reader is also given hints of undercurrents beneath the outside and the spoken word. Every character copes in a different way with varying degrees of success.

This is highly recommended for its combing the depths of loss and emotion. It is not recommended for a light summer reading on the coast of Maine.

Open up the lawn chair and get a cold drink from the cooler. Your summer reading (good for the beach, too!) is waiting for you. Ayelet Waldman's "Red Hook Road" is well written chick lit of the first order, and what's more, it's Maine chick lit. Lobsters and melted butter, blueberry pie, sailing on the bay, fearsome mosquitoes, battered pickups, Hannaford grocery stores---it's almost all there. (Inexplicably, there is no reference to Moxie, the beloved medicine-like soft drink.) The novel is set in Red Hook, Maine, thinly disguised as the actual Downeast town of Blue Hill, with its internationally known summer music festival, Kneisel Hall (Usherman Hall in the book).

Since "Red Hook Road" is meant to be a page-turner, I won't give away a bit of the plot, except to say that it is about two intertwined families and their responses to a tragedy that affects them both. The Copakens are long-time summer visitors from Manhattan or, as Mainers say, "from away." while the Tetherlys are local people. Most of the narration is from the point of view of the indomitable Iris Copaken, a Columbia professor whose specialty is Holocaust Studies, but the omniscient narrator occasionally steps away from Iris to provide insight into other characters. The novel takes place over the course of four summers, with only hints as to what happens in the intervening nine months. You can bet it's cold and bleak up in Red Hook, though, with only the Tetherlys to keep an eye on the closed up summer cottages.

There is a recurring thread of "from away" versus local tension in this novel, although Waldman does not mine this hoary theme with particular success. So dominant is Iris's persona that her opposite number, the house cleaner Jane Tetherly, is reduced to a sullen woman of few words whose only pleasant quality seems to be her ability to make a banana pudding from Nilla wafers that the "from aways" pretend to like. Waldman probably knows that the characterization of Mainers is not her forte; in the opening pages of the book, Iris's daughter Ruthie remarks on how her mother takes infinite pains to chat up the local women but can never shed her outsider status.

"Red Hook Road" ends with a microburst--the weather kind--but the denouement is a kind of prose microburst, too. Everything gets wrapped up VERY rapidly. (Wow, I wish my lawnmower started like the outboard on that unused dinghy in the unused shed!) I'm only giving the novel three stars, as it's not exactly enduring literature. However, as an accompaniment to a sweating glass of iced tea, it's better than a plateful of cookies.
M. Feldman

This book was good - but it is receiving a LOT of buzz that I simply don't think it is worthy of, I think it has been a little over-rated.

I certainly had no trouble finishing it, and the characters and the atmosphere (Maine) easy to get into - but I felt as it went on it rambled and at the end it never tied up any of the loose ends.

I have read much better books this summer - for example, Father of the Rain by Lilly King, which I would give five stars.

I'll give nothing away regarding the premise of Ayelet's story nor the manner in which she follows that premise through to an enormously satisfying conclusion. Suffice it to say that if you're looking for a story peopled with characters with whom you'll want to spend time, "Red Hook Road" is that story. Told over four summers following a tragic occurrence, you, the reader, will be pulled into how deeply, but in so many different ways, these losses affect those most directly involved. You'll be pulled into changing relationships and be buoyed by the strength of character drawn on by two families to keep from being destroyed by their losses. Grief is a powerful thing; and it can destroy, but it can also allow those most touched by tragedy to, in time, grow into the people they are meant to be. Ayelet Waldman brings this area of Maine to such life; she never strikes a false note as she takes her characters through a journey that we, the reader(s) can only marvel at. If this is your first experience with this writer, as it was mine, you'll be inclined, I'm sure, to seek out writing she's done previously. But first allow the beauty of this latest piece of work to pull you into a story you will only find memorable.

"Red Hook Road" is a gripping, touching story of four summers in the life of the Copakens who summer in Red Hook, Maine and the Tetherlys who live and work the boatyards, clean the homes, service the rich escapees from New York City. A wedding between Copakens precious Becca and Tetherlys beloved John bring these families together in a very unique way that is beautifully illuminated by Waldman's excellent prose, her humor, her sense of the human condition. The contention between the two families grows as situations arise for their "togetherness." It would not be fair to say more in that each reader should find the mysteries that float this book throughout.

I so appreciated this read. Waldman is a master of delineating human behavior; each character is flawed but vastly important to the family's cohesive units in which they abide. Waldman explains the life of a concert violinist, the dedication, the talent, the concentration demanded with difficult pieces from Mozart to Bach as deftly as she explains the intricacies of boat building off the coast of Maine by the calloused, weathered men of the sea. This is where her talent truly lies; developing fallible characters that the readers come to respect despite their own inate prejudices. I truly loved that.

Though at times descriptions teeter on verbosity, mostly this is a flowing saga of survival and redemption. A beautiful homage to the Maine coastline; a tribute to the human spirit and it's ability to heal from the worse of wounds.

Recommended!!!

Red Hook Road is the story of two families united by marriage and the tragedy of the bride and groom being killed en route from their wedding to the reception. The story spreads out over four summers in Red Hook, Maine, where the bride's family summers and the groom's family are long-time, working class residents. There's a cultural divide as these families lives intersect.

Tragedy strikes early in this novel, and it didn't affect me very deeply because I wasn't yet invested in the characters. It certainly affected me, but it didn't resonate with me. I was curious how Waldman would treat a story with tragedy at its beginning. Clearly, there is no proper way for these families to act. As the bride's mother often ponders, there is no word in the English language for her relationship to her daughter's husband of one hour's family, yet their lives are inextricably linked in some way.

Despite my initial emotional distance from these characters, I read this novel in a single sitting. I was entranced by the situation, the character's reactions and Waldman's writing. Before long, I was deeply emotionally involved, and I slowly began realizing how brilliantly Waldman constructed her narrative. She's a truly gifted writer who exhibited immense patience and intuition with the pacing of this novel.

I'm still a newlywed, and I imagine part of my fascination with this novel is the idea of in-laws, especially in new marriages. At what point does love (or marriage) transcend family? If my husband or I were to die, at what point would we stop keeping in touch with each other's families. If there were children involved, the answer would be far more clear cut, and the characters in this novel deal with these issues against the backdrop of an idyllic Maine town where summer residents and year-round residents deal with issues of belonging all the time. Despite my personal fascination with family systems theory, I think the themes of this novel will resonate strongly with all readers.

I'm turning thirty later this summer, and I take particular joy and solace in this bit of advice (from a librarian!): "Another thing I have learned in my life is that nothing one does in one's twenties, short of having a child, is irrevocable." (page 196)

It's a book I loved more and more as it went on. While the story and characters gripped me from the beginning, I didn't notice the depth of Waldman's narrative until the end when all of the seemingly connected pieces because inextricably intertwined in a powerful way. It's a beautifully complex and skillfully structured novel that reads smoothly and easily. Recommended for fans of literary fiction and women's fiction.

Every year I pick the one book that, for me, was the best. This year, without a doubt, it is Red Hook Road. Simply put: if you love great stories wonderfully written, read it. You will not regret it.

There is no doubt that Ayelet Waldman's RED HOOK ROAD is a meticulously written book. The story encompasses the lives of two families, the Copaken's and the Tetherly's, after the tragic death of a young bride and groom on their wedding day, and while there were parts of the book I really liked, I am not sure this is one of those books that I am going to remember.

One of my main problems with the book is that I never felt any real emotion regarding the tragedy, nor did I ever feel any connection to any of the characters. I didn't really like Iris and Jane, thought Matt and Ruthie were too insipid, and Daniel was pretty much a non-entity. I did like the Mr.Kimmelbrod/Samantha relationship, but felt that perhaps Waldman was trying too hard to impress us with her knowledge of Violins and Violinists. I do give her credit for the research she must have done into the subject, but I don't think it really added anything of importance to the story.

I found the "Microburst" scenario to be exciting and interesting, but almost out of place. It's as if the ending from another story was inserted here. I suppose this makes for a good summer read.

This book was quite a disappointment. It began with a terrible tragedy - the death of a young couple in a car accident on their wedding day. The rest took place during the following few summers in Maine as the families dealing with their loss attempt to fulfill the legacies of the deceased. I was uninterested. The characters were unsympathetic and I found many of their interests, like boxing and sailing, boring. The only engaging plotline involved the bride's virtuoso violinist grandfather and his relationship with his gifted protégé. Overall, the lives of these two families didn't hold my interest and I became exhausted of their grieving. The conclusion was anticlimactic and whatever point the author was trying to make was extremely tedious to get to. The writing itself did not lack skill, but the story fell flat.