Customer Reviews

Sweeping Up Glass

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(19)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Carolyn Wall's debut novel "Sweeping Up Glass" starts with such a strong literary impact that I had to remind myself to keep breathing. There was so much heartbreaking humanity and reality in the prose that it felt as if the book I held in my hand was a lovely, small, wounded animal rather than a simple work of fiction. In the beginning, almost everything about the book had me entranced--I was under a spell...and, for the most part, that feeling of awe continued straight through to the end.

The book is a truly remarkable debut and Carolyn Wall is an impressive new novelist. Through her simple lyrical prose and authentic dialogue, the impoverished people of rural Appalachia come alive. There is exquisite magic in her straightforward, honest storytelling.

Other reviews on this site outline the book's plot and themes, so I will not go over that material again here. Instead, I want to explain why, after such an enthusiastic opening, I choose to give this book only a three-star and not a five-star rating.

The problem for me was the abrupt change-of-pace in the last few chapters. For most of the book, I had the feeling that I was reading a magnificent character study--a study of a woman, her family, and her town. I would have been totally satisfied if the book had been nothing more than that. It was such a beautiful experience to be in the author's capable hands, taking an intimate look at a marvelous, odd cast of real-life characters.

But shortly before the end, the book abruptly morphs into a fast-paced thriller. The book was like a chimera--ninety percent slow-paced literary character study and ten percent potboiler. I'm sure than many, if not most readers, will not have any problem with this sudden switch-of-pace and style, but for me...well, it totally lifted the veil of reality and I was found myself staring at all the pulley-and-lever mechanics of storytelling stagecraft. The ending broke the long spell of entrancement...and I was sorely disappointed.

I have no problem with the mixing of genres. It is possible to mix a thriller in together with a literary character study--indeed, it has been done many times before. Carolyn Wall got this mix wrong.

Despite this disappointment, I am still enthusiastic and excited by the promise of this new author. Carolyn Wall seems to be a stunning new literary talent and I look forward to her next book. Hopefully, with the next book, she will manage to keep me under her spell straight through to the end.

This novel was difficult to read. Not because it wasn't good - it was very good -- but because of the subject matter. I was hungry, I was cold, tired, lonely and filled with rage and frustration - I felt every feeling and thought every thought along with Olivia. I savored the prose and often stopped to reread passages - something I don't often do with the typical books I tend to pick up these days. I was looking for reading pleasure and I got that in this book in one way, but in another I was so drawn into Olivia's world that I experienced it with her and that meant I didn't find it comfortable to read too much at one sitting. It is an unflinching look at poverty, racism, buried secrets, and family bonds at a time in history when everything was HARD.

You will like this book and you should buy it if you like gritty stories of hardscrabble existence eked out in primitive conditions by a determined, plucky woman who has nothing going for her but a strong back and a sense of purpose. The setting is the Kentucky mountains, depression era, dirt poor. Olivia Harker Cross lives with her crazy mother Ida and her grandson Will'm in a shack attached to a small grocery. She stocks her shelves and feeds her family by making quilts and by working very hard. Her life revolves around staying alive, taking care of her grandson, and protecting the silver wolves that were reintroduced to the area by her grandfather. She is a friend to the blacks in a time where lynchings aren't uncommon and segregation is fierce. Even though there is a story line that involves hunters going after the wolves, the book is really a character study. Although some might not find them sympathetic and might even dislike them, they are all very real, uniquely flawed, and doing the best they can given the time, place, and circumstance.

I recommend it -- much to think about and good for a book group or class discussion. Would work perfectly as ancillary reading in an American History course re: 1930s lectures about the Great Depression and race relations.

Personal opinion: I do not agree with others who have likened the book to the classic To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Perennial Modern Classics) as the adult point of view and bitter voice of Olivia, although clear and honest, is not like the innocent child narrator Scout in that story.

Olivia Harker Cross, the protagonist and narrator in Carolyn Wall's captivating "Sweeping Up Glass" is one of the novel's strongest selling points. It's been a good while since I have been so wrapped up in the complexities of a fictional character that I have to heartily recommend this terrific and surprising new book. Admirable, stubborn, heroic, and infuriating--Olivia's fresh, clear, and blunt voice drive Wall's deceptively simple story to unexpected depths.

Living a hard hand-to-mouth existence in rural Kentucky, Olivia supports a mother just this side of madness and a grandson abandoned by her daughter. When someone starts murdering wolves on her land, this catalyst leads Olivia to explore her family history and to unearth some bitter and terrifying truths about the place she calls home. The novel, both moving and exciting, is alive and haunting as it unfolds in Olivia's own words and as she starts to unravel the past and to understand the present--the reader is right there with her. I was fully committed to Olivia and her quest for answers.

Spanning decades and tracking four generations of a proud, but troubled, Kentucky family--this small and compulsively entertaining story is at once straightforward and multi-layered. Part family drama, part mystery, part social commentary, part romance, and part thriller--it's an amazing feat that Wall has accomplished in fitting so much content into such a small volume. And to do so with so much gusto and originality left me breathless. A nearly perfect little book marred by a bit of abruptness in the final pages, Wall's storytelling style has drawn comparisons to Harper Lee. A huge compliment in and of itself! Unlike Lee, though, and her masterpiece "To Kill A Mockingbird"--I just hope there's a lot more to come from Wall. KGHarris, 8/09.

This book is quite well crafted in most respects, but suffers from a major plot flaw and unsympathetic characters. I enjoyed reading the book, but not well enough to recommend to my friends with limited reading time: it doesn't make the cut for me, even though I understand why many readers might rate it higher.

The narrator/main character is a 42-year-old woman running a poor farm and meager local store in foothill country in Kentucky in the early 20th century. As the book opens she and her 11-year-old grandson (!) get involved trying to rescue a wolf that has been (illegally?) shot and mutilated on her land. She starts telling us about the store and the people around her, and the story segues nicely into an extremely extended flashback that basically covers her life to that point. Throughout we get some ominous hints of things unsaid, conflicts buried but not forgotten. The situation develops rather slowly for the first three quarters of the story; then our narrator becomes intent on uncovering some of the past that has been hidden from her. This launches us into open, violent, widespread conflict, and in resolving that all the questions raised earlier are resolved. In the process we learn something important about how much difference there could be between the surface appearance and deeper truth about racial interactions in an earlier version of America.

This is billed as a "debut novel", but the bio note makes clear that the author has considerable writing experience, and it shows. For example, time is handled very well, with the flashback and return flowing smoothly without confusing the reader about when is "now". And she avoids the temptation to write dialog "in dialect", a common novice's mistake that usually yields an unpleasant experience for the reader; but she uses a sprinkling of "local" words and phrasings that struck me as just enough to maintain the context. That was very well done.

So why only three stars? First, I felt no resonance with any of the characters: I had little sympathy with them, and generally just didn't *like* any of them. Second, the plot relies critically on a device that I could not believe: there is a "secret" here, one that is vitally important to our narrator; unknown to her; but known for decades by every other person in the town and around it. The story as told convinced me that most of those people had a reason to *want* to keep the secret, but I simply don't believe that it would have held up. It doesn't work for me, and it seriously damages the book. Third, there were a number of points where I just stared at the words on the page trying to puzzle out what they were supposed to convey: turns of phrase that had no meaning for me, and that would set the context rather than be understood from it; I just looked at a couple of these again, and I still don't know what they meant. Finally, I didn't care for the pacing: 225 pages of almost sedate development suddenly rocketing off into 75 pages of almost apocalyptic conflict.

I certainly wouldn't tell anyone intent on reading this book not to; but I won't be telling my friends to put it on the top of the pile.

[This review was based on an Advance Reading Copy of the paperback edition of the book]

I enjoyed the book in the beginning. But, as the pages turned, the accumulation of errors grew. Near the end, I could no longer keep the errors reined in, and this book became a dress that just wouldn't fit any more. If I didn't live so close to Kentucky, maybe I wouldn't know that Appalachian people don't call their mother "ma'am", or grow cotton, or have winters of non-stop snow... actually, it seems like through this entire story the main character was struggling with snow and hunger and doing it in foreign ways with counter-intuitive results. And the ending was just ridiculously unbelievable. Following, came pages to tell us how the author invented the [underdeveloped] characters and [disconnected] elements of the story, explaining why she chose some directions and not others. Was she really tooting her own horn over this horribly undercooked dish she'd just served me? I didn't care to be given her recipe for something that was already not sitting well in my stomach. My three stars just fell to two.

SWEEPING UP GLASS (Novel/Mys-Olivia Harker-Kentucky-1930s) - Ex

Wall, Carolyn D. - 1st book

Poisoned Pen Press, 2008, US Hardcover - ISBN: 9781590585122

First Sentence: The long howl of a wolf rolls over me like a toothache.

Olivia Harker lives with her grandson in a run-down, cold-water building with a grocery out front, a small bedroom, kitchen and sleeping alcove in back and an outhouse. Her emotionally abusive mother lives an a shack separate from the house.

Someone is killing silver-faced wolves on her property. She knows who, but the why takes her back through her life's story until it places her, her family and friends in danger for their lives.

This is quite a story. It covers 40+ years of a woman's life. It's a hard life filled with emotional pain, hard work and disappointment while Olivia is hardened by it, in the way steel is tempered by fire and pressure. While Olivia is the primary character, those around her are just as real and memorable.

It's hard to say much about the story without, in some way, diminishing it. It is sometimes painful to read, buy only because Olivia is such a wonderful, fully-realized character.

Wall doesn't just give you a sense of place. She takes you to the sights, sounds and smells of Kentucky hill country along with very real emotions that can make it an uncomfortable and painful read at times. But it's wonderfully done; a book I shan't soon forget and one I'm very glad to have read.

Sweeping Up Glass is the story of Olivia Harker, her family, her friends, and the hardships they all endure in rural 1938 Kentucky. The book introduces us to Olivia and her immediate surviving family, and then shifts off into about 15 chapters of back story. These chapters relate Olivia's childhood and her previous struggles with her mentally ill mother, her doting father, the love of her life, and the segregated black community in her area. Olivia encounters many hardships and setbacks as she grows up, and some are completely devastating. She grows from being a sweet and loving child into an acerbic and unbending woman. She is fiercely loyal in her love and ardently forceful in her hate. It is clear that her circumstances have shaped her. Olivia's daily existence is a tribulation that most would shrink from. Though she handles her situation with poise, she also carries more than a little bitterness. Olivia is a complex woman who is stubborn and resigned, yet still somehow hopeful. When we finally resume the action in the present, Olivia is faced with the realization that someone is killing the wolves that have always been protected residents of her land. Along with her grandson William, she attempts to track down the hunters. What she discovers is more than a simple poaching scheme, and the effects will be volatile to herself and the community.

The secondary plot revolves around Ida, Olivia's mother, who lives in a tar paper shack on the edge of her property. Ida is a fantastically rash character. She is mentally ill and has been abusive towards Olivia all her life; there is no love lost between them. Though Ida was absent for most of Olivia's adolescence, she returns to the family and creates havoc and heartache for Olivia and her father. Through all of her erratic behavior, Olivia's father, Tate Harker, remains loyal and steadfast to her. Yet Ida shows no reciprocation towards Tate, and remains cruel and unyielding. One of the interesting aspects of this book was the portrayal of the mental hospitals of the day. When Ida must retreat to one of these hospitals, Olivia visits to inspect it, and it is harrowing. The women there are either forced to be immobile or locked in small cages. Electroshock is mentioned, as are head shavings and ice baths. I had trouble with this section of the book, as it seemed a savage fate for Ida, one that Olivia didn't fully ruminate on. Though Ida had made some very bad choices in her life and didn't feel even the slightest bit of remorse, the choice to send her to that facility seemed heinous. It seems the author's point was that Olivia couldn't forgive Ida for what she had done and that as far as she was concerned, Ida was irredeemable. I feel that this section of the book may disturb many readers, and it was the only thing that marred my pleasure in this book. It was the only piece in the book that didn't seem to fit. The blatant cruelty of the decision was shocking.

Another aspect of the story involved Olivia's current relationship with her former high school sweetheart, Wing Harris. Olivia and Wing had only a brief time together before events separated them. Wing watched with stolid silence as Olivia went through horrible stages of her life, offering any help he could, while Olivia in her pride rejected him. As the book progresses, Wing and Olivia tackle the obstacles involved in their reconciliation. It is not as easy for them to reunite as one would hope. I liked the character of Wing because he was noble in the face of all his humiliations and trials, and he was always there when it mattered. Wing was a likeable character. Though somewhat sedate, he was unflinching in his honesty and loyalty.

The segregated black community portrayed in this book is poignant and revealing. Though they must remain separate from the whites, even having separate days for shopping at the local store, they embrace Olivia and her family as one of their own. The community's hardships are not harped upon, but relayed with respect to the adversity they faced. It was touching to see that there could indeed be no separation of color as far as Olivia's family was concerned. Themes of racial acceptance, real or imagined, hoped for or denied, ran through the book.

But as wolves continue to be slaughtered, Olivia unwittingly places herself and those she loves into the hands of unjust men who are trying to keep a devastating underground society alive. The story becomes a race to save those she loves, and the town, from certain destruction. Great forces are aligned against her, and it was with great trepidation that I realized the odds were against her. The many tiny revelations, along with the great, kept me on the edge of my seat, wondering if there was more to come, wondering how much more she and those of the town could take. Malice and discord sweep through the pages as the truths are slowly picked out. In addition, there are mysteries surrounding her father, secrets shrouded in perplexity that may indicate that her father was not the man she once knew.

This book had me hooked from the very first pages. The hard-scrabble daily existence of the characters was captivating and engrossing. The economies that had to be made were many, and the details of 1930's Kentucky were so precise that it was greatly absorbing. The language was rustic and simple, yet very clear and concise. I found myself wanting to know more about these people, to know more about their lives, hurts and victories. This book has a lot to say about the times that it portrays. The small issues and the great, neither is neglected. There are wise and humble characters as well as wicked and sinister ones. Love, anger, betrayal, duty, honor, racism, and death, forgiveness: they are all here. And the tapestry created is one of beautiful complexity.

By the end of the book, I was wishing I could spend more time with these characters, that they would not go. Aside from the aberration regarding the mental hospital, this was an outstanding debut novel. I will definitely read any other offerings from this author, and I wish her luck in her writing career.

I really thought that this book would be more than it was. The protagonist's problems were set up well and the imagery is vivid. After about two thirds, though, it just fell apart (or was, perhaps, sewed up too quickly). I agree that the almost last-minute heroics of the FBI agents seem too contrived. It's as if the first 2/3 of the book reads like a book, while the last third is more like a movie that needs to fit into two hours. It just didn't seem as though Olivia's problems would stem so easily (for lack of a better word) to her father's hidden notebook. More introspection should be demanded from Olivia; the setting seems fractured and the plot too easily resolved.

What a page turning. It was very hard to put this book down. The author was able to bring us right into the settings. I believe the author has done her homework for the depression era and did it very well. I really enjoyed how her showed for special lifes creatures are how they were cared for. I would recommend this book and look forward to her next book.

In her debut novel, Carolyn Wall introduces Olivia Harker Cross. We first meet Olivia as an adult, caring for her grandson Will'm, in rural Kentucky during the difficult years of the depression era. [I believe that some events mentioned are pre-depression era, as well.] At first, this is an engaging book. It is rich in detail, and the main characters are finely delineated. This novel moves from the present to the past and returns to the present. Most times these transitions are accomplished gracefully.

Olivia is a stoic woman who appears to cope well during a number of very difficult circumstances. Readers will encounter the ugliness of racial hatred and segregation, the complexities of family life [especially mothers who appear unable to bond with their newborn babies], love, loss, the need for institutionalization, as well as additional mysterious events.

Olivia states, 'Trouble has come to me backward and forward, like too much gravy running off my plate.' [Page 202] This was a problem for me. In my opinion, there seemed to be too many issues with which to deal thus diluting some of the central ones.

'Some folks are born of water....Olivia Harker was born of this earth.' [Page 40] Reading about Olivia and her love of the land seemed authentic. It was interesting to note the diet of these Kentuckians since they depended, a great deal, upon their land and some animals [fowl, as well] for daily sustenance. They, also, bartered and/or shared with neighbors. While the weather became cold, I felt Olivia's coldness, as well as the earth's hardness.

As a child, Olivia and her father have a warm and loving relationship. This is conveyed to a reader in a believable manner. Pap [Olivia's father] functions as the town's vet. He is portrayed as a loving, caring, warm and racially tolerant individual. Olivia seems to take a good deal after him. However, when Olivia becomes a bit older, she has to deal with her bizarre, often irrational, mother [Ida]. Ida is unlike Olivia's father who is a very sympathetic individual.

This book introduces a number of secondary characters. Some of these appear to be very good while others seem to be quite malevolent. This became problematic for me. The lines were too easily defined. They were one-dimensional characters as opposed to the multi-dimensional first tier characters.

Clearly, for me, the very beginning of this book was the most engaging. During the beginning of this novel, the prose was above average. However, in my view, this was not sustained throughout the book. The middle of this debut was, somewhat, troublesome since I question some of Olivia's actions. Some of these seemed out-of-character. The writing and plot twists and turns -- especially towards the end of 'Sweeping Up Glass' did not resonate with me. The dialogue became too simplistic. This book was over-seasoned with the word 'shattered,' 'splintered,' and 'glass.' I really wanted to like this novel since it was described as resembling 'To Kill A Mockingbird.' [This was not the case for me.] Unfortunately, for me, this was ultimately a disappointingly flawed read. Olivia was characterized as a woman of substance and depth who struggled with serious issues. She feared insanity and pondered why one often defers to the needs of older people. However these two issues were never explored.

While quite flawed, this attempted to be an intricate patchwork quilt. I would have preferred a more focused theme. 'Sweeping Up Glass' seemed to be a promising, yet unfulfilling, read. [-3]