A Stranger's House [Paperback]

Bret Lott (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 1999

For a long time, Claire and Tom Templeton have wished in vain for a child. What they have instead is a house, a charming old Cape that is their consolation. In the gray chill of a Massachusetts autumn, the Templetons and two local handymen, loners and eccentrics, work to rebuild the ramshackle home. As the house takes on a new life, Claire begins to understand its tangled history -- and to reconcile her own past and renew her hope for the future.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Lott, author of The Man Who Owned Vermont, writes here from the point of view of Claire Templeton, a lab technician living in New England. She and her husband Tom have been trying for years to have a baby. They have also been searching for the perfect home: a Cape style "fixer-upper." The day after they find their dream house, Claire is bitten by a pregnant rabbit, a laboratory test animal. That night she has a vivid nightmare about her own, unborn, children. She starts to brood about her past: her father's death and her mother's fears. When the Templetons return to the house they meet the caretakersteenager Grady, and Martin, a mentally retarded older man, who is, notwithstanding, an expert carpenter. Having been hired to help renovate the house, Grady and Martin gradually tell about their lives, slowly revealing the victimization each has suffered. The love and care that they show each other saves Claire, obsessed with her childlessness and her memories, from an incipient breakdown. Lott hits some emotional bulls-eyes in his portrait of the loving but unhappy Templetons, especially as Claire achieves understanding of her parents' role in her life and in her own marriage, but the narrative often lapses into a sentimentality that threatens to overwhelm it.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Coupling the small details of time and place with the grand scale of human emotion, Lott has created a moving second novel about a young couple dealing with their childlessness. The story is set within a four-month time period and opens as the Templetons are moving into their dream house in the country. Claire then begins having nightmares about her unborn children after being bitten by a pregnant laboratory rabbit. Swirling around her reborn hope for a child are a co-worker's pregnancy, the stories behind their house's caretakers, and Claire's feelings of loss and fear involving her dead parents. Lott probes, in understated prose, the subtleties of marriage and the parent-child bond. A memorable novel from the author of The Man Who Owned Vermont ( LJ 6/1/87). Michele Leber, Fairfax Cty. P.L., Va.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Washington Square Press; Original edition (January 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671038222
• ISBN-13: 978-0671038229
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,257,890 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Bret Lott is the author of thirteen books, most recently the novel Dead Low Tide(Random House 2008); other books include the story collection The Difference Between Women and Men, the nonfiction book Before We Get Started: A Practical Memoir of the Writer's Life, and the bestselling novels Jewel, an Oprah Book Club pick, and A Song I Knew by Heart. His work has appeared in, among other places, The Yale Review, The New York Times, The Georgia Review and in dozens of anthologies. Born in Los Angeles, he received his BA in English from Cal State Long Beach in 1981, and his MFA in fiction from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, in 1984, where he studied under James Baldwin. From 1986 to 2004 he was writer-in-residence and professor of English at The College of Charleston, leaving to take the position of editor and director of the journal The Southern Review at Louisiana State University. Three years later, in the fall of 2007, he returned to The College of Charleston and the job he most loves: teaching. His honors include having been named Fulbright Senior American Scholar and writer-in-residence to Bar-Ilan University in Tel Aviv, Israel; having spoken on Flannery O'Connor at The White House; and being appointed a member of the National Council on the Arts. He and his wife, Melanie, and live in Hanahan, South Carolina.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Riveting Drama, April 6, 2000

By 

Janet K. Schmidt "book maven" (Belleville, IL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Stranger's House (Paperback)

I enjoyed this book. Somewhat dark, it explores the stages of a marriage, and gave me a real understanding of the pain of infertility.

It is also an interesting look at becoming a homeowner (after a long hunt) and how what starts as a interest in the house's history and a casual association with the previous owner's black sheep grandson and his retarded friend grows to a caring involvement in two sad lives. As Claire works toward an acceptance of her inability to become a mother, a much longed for dream, she works through the changes that infertility and new home ownership bring to her marriage; and comes to learn that life will indeed go on, and that while she more than likely will never give birth, she will be presented with other outlets for her nurturing and caring. Not perhaps what she wanted, with rewards of their own.

Lott exhibits the wonderful storytelling ability here that he later showed in Jewel. As with Jewel, a happy, jolly tale, but a satisfying, thought provoking read.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Requires Fortitude, December 14, 2004

By 

Gregory Bascom (San Jose Costa Rica) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: A Stranger's House (Paperback)

This review is for the Viking Penguin Inc. edition published in 1988, 256 pages.

After years of trying to have children, the doctor told Claire Templeton, a lab technician who sticks things into the brains of live rabbits, and her husband Tom, that they cannot. In the narrative present, Claire and Tom, having more or less accepted their barren fate, contemplate the purchase of an old house in need of repair. With the permission of the realtor, Claire and Tom attempt to appraise the property alone, but encounter Grady, the grandson of the owner and his retarded friend, Martin.

That's the plot basis for 173 pages, which provides opportunity for digressions on the humane treatment of rabbits for scientific enlightenment (although accidents happen), and the divining technique of a retarded savant for finding rotted clapboards. The writing is beautiful, although bogged with sensory detail overload, my pet peeve, and there are rich analogies, although I'm too thickheaded to grasp them. For example, on page 92 the protagonist Claire, on tip toes, bends a branch and plucks a leaf, which she rolls into a tight tube and carries for ten pages until, "The leaf, an even duller green than I'd thought it would be, lay crumpled in my hand." Get it? I didn't.

So why four stars? Around page 174, I began to suspect I hadn't been paying attention. It's a memorable tale, and a good one, but it requires fortitude.

3.0 out of 5 stars good story, February 13, 2001

By 

Barbara "Queen of her castle AND her home lib... (beautiful Charleston, SC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Stranger's House (Paperback)

I enjoyed this book's story very much. The only thing that wasn't interesting to me and even made me cringe were the parts involving the research with the rabbits, since I do love animals. I couldn't really thoroughly read those parts of the story because They were way too detailed for me. But as for the basic story, it was very good. The last 2 chapters were SO GOOD. The ending of this book was exceptional. Bret Lott always writes books with the kind of plots that make you really think about the characters' situations. As I stated, I enjoyed this story and haven't read anything quite like it, actually. Definitely worth reading.