Customer Reviews

Stiltsville: A Novel

5 star:		(27)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Susanna Daniel's evocative and tender "Stiltsville" has a quiet power built from the small moments and decisions that shape a lifetime. Spanning decades, "Stiltsville" is ultimately a love story--or you might even call it a life story--about a young couple who fall in love and spend the rest of their days together. In Frances and Dennis, Daniel has created a very believable centerpiece with which to explore how people evolve as a product of their environment and their relationships. Sweet, funny, and surprisingly matter-of-fact at times--"Stiltsville" manages to avoid romanticism and cliche by being so grounded and believable.

Set in South Florida, "Stiltsville" manages to convey a real sense of place. The stilt houses, the fishing, the country club set--the Florida that Daniel creates is as essential to the story as are its inhabitants. Beginning in 1969, Frances and Dennis meet and are instantly drawn to one another. The novel is structured with each chapter representing a fast forward in their relationship until the book concludes in 1993. These moments in time can vary from humorous to touching to tense to heartbreaking--and together they form the basis for a life in total. In addition to the main couple, we come to know their friends and Dennis' family as well as their daughter and her eventual husband. While "Stiltsville" does seem to cover a lot of ground, I never felt that any of the characters were shortchanged.

And that is the primary strength of Daniel's work--the protagonists and supporting players are all fully realized. Even when you don't always like the decisions they make, you can identify with their mistakes. I came to genuinely care about every principle character--no small feat when you consider the episodic nature of the narrative. I was invested and involved from the beginning which made the emotional payoff of "Stiltsville" all the more poignant. Ultimately, I doubt that I'm the target audience for "Stiltsville"--but the fact that it cracked my cold bloodless heart makes me think that people with actual feelings may find much to love about this lovely book!

mythoughts

Stiltsville is written as if it is a memoir but it is a work of fiction. I found myself neither able to put the book down nor eager to pick it up. I read Stiltsville over a couple of days but soon realized that as a story it was "middle of the road".

Some books are exciting and you eagerly wait to get to the end while other books put you to sleep and trying to go past chapter one may be a chore...Stiltsville was neither.

Susanna Daniel creates a somewhat interesting story of a young woman, Frances Ellerby, who is on the path of self-discovery. The book is narrated through the eyes and voice of Frances. While the storyline may be interesting...it clearly reminds me of a tale a grandmother would share with her children or grandchildren. I, personally, did not encounter the drama, temptation or chaos that was supposed to be part of this story line.

Those "exciting" elements were promising but elusive and unfulfilling in the storyline. They were often hinted and referred to but not developed or described in such detail that I would feel the emotion behind the situation. The lack of "fire" in the story left me rather cold about the central figures.

Imagine ordering a decadent, mouthwatering chocolate molten cake dessert and instead receiving vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce. It's good but definitely not in the same league...so it is with Stiltsville.

Susanna Daniel has a talent for taking the ordinary and transforming it into breathtakingly beautiful prose. Her description of a marriage is so honest and detailed that it will certainly resonate with many readers. I was entranced by the story and its characters, and could not put the book down. A perfect read for summer or for any time of year that you'd like to be transported to balmy Miami.

`Stiltsville' can be a parable for living, especially the life of Frances Ellerby. She is brought to it by a friend in 1969. It is hard to understand how Stiltsville exists on pilings in a hurricane prone bay, but it does and so Frances' story is told, not day by day or even year by year; but selected years and certain days of those years - as one would remember back in time. They are memories, not necessarily of what would be major life incidents to other people, but they are in the times of an individual's life and of a marriage. Therein lies their importance and significance.

The story line is captivatingly written and absorbing in the sense as it would be in listening to the tales of a friend.

Frances and her husband Dennis, their daughter, Margo struggle through life's problems and the joys of ordinary living. This is a reading that will tell you of life till the end. It can be, as existence is, worthy of note, not easy, mundane and sometimes heartbreakingly sad, but still a striking description of life which makes this a book an out of the ordinary read.

Stiltsville

By

Suzanna Daniel

When I first read the reviews and praise and hype for this book I was eager to get it immediately. It sounded like my kind of a book and I wanted to read it as soon as possible. It was a bit of a slow read at first. I liked the story and was getting interested in the characters but I started to wonder why I wanted to read it...why did I bump all of my other books down to the bottom of my queue and choose this one? But soon I was caught up in the events in the lives of this Florida family. Frances, Dennis, Marse, Bette, Gloria, Grady, Margo, Scott and many other characters. The only way that I can describe this novel is sort of like the peeling of an artichoke. You read about one event and that leads you to the next event and the next and the next and the next after that. I think for me it was reading about ordinary people dealing with all of the day to day and year to year events in their lives. The struggles and the triumphs and the mistakes and the joys are all wrapped up in these houses and the neighborhoods in and around Miami beginning in the 1950's and ending at the end point of a 26 year marriage.

Stilthouses, of course, play an important role in this story. It is where Dennis and Frances met...it is where their story begins. There are actually still stilthouses in Biscayne Bay near Miami, Florida. They look odd and unsafe and beautiful. The stilthouse in Dennis's family seems to be a point of refuge and happiness for them during the various upheavals in their lives. They provide an escape and a getaway during trying times.

I loved this book. It touched my heart and soul. I cried as the story ended. Suzanna Daniel writes lyrically and beautifully and masterfully. It was one of my favorite reading experiences so far this year. This story and this family will stay in my thoughts for a long time.

This is a story that pulls you into the lives of the characters. The beginning is nearly all narrative, but you learn to know the people in the story.

It's about an unexpected and unintentional love that brings a couple together and keeps them there through thick and thin. Their friends are lifelong, their daughter grows up and marries, and when needed, friends and family are there.

It's an engrossing story, and one that sticks in your mind.

It starts in Stiltsville, a collection of houses built on palings in Biscayne Bay, in Florida. The houses are mostly used for week-ends and vacations with swimming and diving and boating. (People live in Miami.) It ends in Miami.

You feel as though you really know these people and that you share their lives.

Great book.

I'm blown away by Stiltsville. Buy it, and then clear your schedule because you will a) be unable to set the book down, and b) do a lot of crying. This is a brilliant work of fiction. I can't say enough good things.

I just finished Stiltsville and cannot say enough good things about it. First....I spent twenty-two of the best yrs. of my life in Miami.....starting in 1969 just when the book starts and I want to say....she got it all right !! I have had some great days in Stiltsville and all the surrounding areas that were included.That said...the story in itself was absolutely charming...even down to the several tissue ending. I have to admit that this story was my favorite type. I simply love "family" stories and always wonder what happened next in their lives. This was great entertainment and I will look forward to more from this writer

How I loved "Stiltsville"....I had the feeling while reading that I was sitting on the front deck of one of the fabulous "Stilt-houses"...eavesdropping through the screendoor as the inhabitants discussed their lives. I could smell the freshly caught fish grilling and feel the sea occasionally spray my face. Susanna Daniels has written a quiet, yet beautifully powerful book. It is the perfect late summer read...bringing South Florida to glorious life so vibrantly that the atmosphere becomes a major character.

Ultimately...this is a book about marriage. About the rare and breathtaking bond that can form between two people that gives them the ability to survive any trauma as long as they are together....the kind that allows them to finish each others sentences and to communicate with their eyes only. I have read several reviews here that complain that nothing really "happens" in this book...what "happens" is LIFE... I am a little alarmed that many do not understand the peaceful and lovely prose and the very personal story here that simply leaps from the pages.

This is my number two book of the year so far...it will stay with me for a very long time. Highly reccomended.

I loved this book! Susanna Daniel deserves every bit of the high praise coming her way with the publication of "Stiltsville." It took me fifty to sixty pages to be completely won over, but for the remaining 250 pages, I couldn't put the book down. If you've read my other reviews, you'll know that, for me to begin and finish a book, there must be characters I come to care about, characters I want to spend time with; "Stiltsville" offered me that in spades! While the focus is on Frances and Dennis...Frances tells the story...author Daniel has created a wonderful group of important and supporting characters who remain with the reader to story's end. The author, with such insight, explores friendships (their strength and fraility), family, marriage, and devastating loss. It would be too easy to begin to tell the story, but, then, too much is given away. One technique I like that Susanna Daniel uses is to begin a section of reading with a piece of information that leaves the reader with, "Wow! How did that happen?" or, "Gee, I didn't think the character would do that," but then backtracks and, with an effective storytelling device, fills the reader in on just what occurred along the way. I also liked that temptation within a marriage is explored, the possibility for a character to go astray, temporarily or permanently; moreso, I like, in this case, Frances' having the strength to move onward in this commitment she's made to Dennis, allowing her, at story's end, to acknowledge her love for him and his for her with "Thank you for my life." I appreciated, too, the manner in which she explores her own daughter's marriage and difficulties that would be encountered, with some sort of assurance that they, too, might work through and maintain their commitment to one another. I just think it's too easy to walk away. Any relationship must be worked at or it becomes something taken for granted, whether this be a marriage or a friendship. And this is exactly what Susanna Daniel does through her character of Frances...she's given Frances great and believeable strength of character but not so that Frances comes across as some sort of Super Woman. Frances is out there with all of her faults and flaws, but she's a woman with the intelligence to think things through, to stay on course, to weather what might be rocky until she's on a more even keel once again. Read this book! Within this wonderful story there is such great understanding of just what makes us tick. I regretted coming to the end of the story. I was in tears, but author Daniel left me feeling that these people I could not follow beyond the book's end would be just fine in time. That was reassuring...that's how much you will come to care for these fictional "friends" you'll make through this book called "Stiltsville."