Souvenir of Cold Springs [Hardcover]

Kitty Burns Florey (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 7, 2001

One family's secrets, betrayals, and hopes, woven together through four generations into a brilliant tapestry of memory and love. . Margaret Neal, a junior at Harvard, drops out after discovering she is pregnant. At loose ends, and feeling like a disgrace to her parents and to herself, she has to get away. For the money to buy a ticket out of town, she appeals to her Aunt Nell, the family matriarch, a no-nonsense ex-schoolteacher who seems to have nothing in her life but her cat, her daily bran cereal and prunes, a big old house full of stuff nobody wants, and relatives who covet her money. But when Nell sends the check she also encloses a gift-an odd but cherished souvenir that will lead to the revelation of a series of truths about the family's long and haunted history. A warm, humorous novel of unforgettable power and grace, Souvenir of Cold Springs tumbles backwards in time, from 1987 to 1938, through the voices of four generations of women in an extended family. Peeling away the layers, bit by bit, these women tell interlocking stories that uncover the painful events that arose from one impulsive act buried deep in the past, and from the misconceptions, rationalizations, and outright lies that followed. Through this expansive exercise of memory, we come to see that this family, like all families, is a rich accumulation, each generation echoing and deepening the experiences of those who have come before them.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Florey's seventh novel (Duet; Vigil for a Stranger; etc.) follows a family's complicated, often troubled history through the lives of several generations of its women, starting with young Margaret Neal's dramatic departure from Harvard in the mid-1980s and ending with her great-aunt Peggy's girlhood, which resembles Margaret's in more ways than one. The dramas of each generation are revealed in chapters assigned to the principal female characters at different points in the family's timeline vignettes of individual lives, steeped in the mundane and magical, each of which could easily stand alone as a tightly crafted short story. Of particular interest is another aunt, Margaret's great-aunt Nell, who hosts the annual (and typically disastrous) Thanksgiving dinner and seems to tie the members of the family together in some surreptitious way. Nell and the "souvenir" she offers prove the link between Margaret and her mysterious namesake. Florey has a particular gift for characterization and imbues her protagonists' simplest moments of self-reflection with telling detail and startling awareness. The result is a smart and absorbing novel that rings true. Most impressive is that the many falls and foibles of this clan do not serve to create an air of tragedy nor does the female-driven narrative lapse into sentimentality. Florey's forthright and witty prose buoyantly carries the tale. The reverse narrative structure and the plethora of friends and family can make it quite difficult to keep all of the characters and their respective relationships straight, but the effort is worth making. (Aug. 15)Forecast: Fans of Alice McDermott will appreciate this honest and graceful book. The rather earth-motherish cover art doesn't effectively represent what's inside, but it shouldn't hurt sales either.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Florey's new novel is a collage of viewpoints presented backward in time, from 1987 to 1938. Specific characters pop up sometimes as children, sometimes as adults, but always to provide that character's slant on the family to which they all belong. The traditional Thanksgiving family reunion at Aunt Nell's throughout the years tracks the marriages, children, and divorces of the likes of charming, alcoholic Uncle Teddy; Kay, his first wife, who married him because she thought he would be a good father to her children; Nell and her lover, Thea, whose longstanding lesbian relationship is discovered by her priggish artist brother, Jamie, when she is 57; and the children, no longer children but pot-smoking young adults with college classes, careers, and relationships. Densely written, the novel's overlapping perspectives may confuse some readers while delighting others. Whitney Scott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Counterpoint; First edition. edition (August 7, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1582431531
• ISBN-13: 978-1582431536
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,704,919 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Kitty Burns Florey is the author of Script and Scribble: The Rise and Fall of Handwriting and Sister Bernadette's Barking Dog: The Quirky History and Lost Art of Diagramming Sentences. A veteran copy editor, she has also written nine novels and many short stories and essays. She lives in Connecticut.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An intriguing read, May 8, 2003

By 

Busy Mom (Ohio) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Souvenir of Cold Springs (Hardcover)

I must confess that I wasn't sure about reading this book at first ~~ it sounded so depressing especially when the novel started off with Margaret who is dealing with an unwanted pregnancy and the aftermath of an abortion. However, as I continue to read this book, I find it very intriguing and very interesting. It's definitely a book geared to mothers and daughters ~~ and Florey describes the intricate interweaving of relationships between mothers, daughters, sisters and lovers with a flair that most authors don't seem to have these days.

This book is also written in an unique way. Florey starts with the present ~~ Margaret, the fifth generation, then it travels back into time. Florey takes a chapter for each woman and brings these women alive with feelings, dreams and broken dreams, unfulfilled desires and sadness, and on and on. It's wonderfully written and I loved it. I, personally, can relate to every character in the book ~~ and Florey has done a wonderful job of bringing them to life. These are women who are flesh and blood like the rest of us.

I wouldn't hesitate to pick up this book ~~ fortunately, my mother picked it up and loaned it to me to read. I can't wait to give it back to her and urge her to read it next! Like mother, like daughter. =) This is a book you should read and pass onto all the mothers and sisters and daughters in your life.

5-8-03

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good, but, November 30, 2001

By 

Lawrence W. Prichard "lj-and-me" (Kent, OH, United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Souvenir of Cold Springs (Hardcover)

I have loved Kitty Burns Florey's writng for a very long time. Her strengths are present- clear characters, ample, but not overwhelming detail, and a sincere affection.However, I found the structure of this otherwised fine book disorienting. Unlike Margaret Atwood's _Cat's Eye_, another novel which plays with structure, this only regresses until the last chapter, a not entirely satisfying wrap-up.The strongest, most interesting character is Nell. There is no explicit sex, but Nell's lesbainism is dealt with in a forthright manner.I want to like this book more than I do. I am not sorry I read it, though.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A unique and sophisticated novel, November 11, 2001

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Souvenir of Cold Springs (Hardcover)

Margaret Neal is a junior at Harvard who, after a disastrous liaison with unfortunate consequences drops out of school. She tries to raise money for a ticket to California by appealing to her Aunt Nell Kerwin, an ex-school teacher who lives in the old family home with only a cat for company. When Aunt Nell replies to Margaret's plea for help she encloses as a gift an odd but cherished souvenir that weaves in and out of the story as a series of crucial truths about the family's haunted and troubled history is revealed, bit by bit. Author Kitty Florey uses interlocking narratives to peel away layers of a larger story of painful events that arose from one impulsive act buried deep in the family's past and which resulted in generations of misconceptions, rationalizations, and outright lies. The reader is taken back through the 20th century to see how this family (and any family) is a rich accumulation of events that built one upon another into a complex, intergenerational fabric of stories, traditions, and secrets. In the final epilogue, Aunt Nell ruminates on the past and antipathies the future, thereby bringing the novel back to the present and a completely satisfying reorientation for the reader. Souvenir Of Cold Springs is a unique and sophisticated novel that engages the reader's attention and just won't let go from first page to last.