Tenney's Landing: Stories [Hardcover]

Catherine Tudish (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 31, 2005

A series of interconnected stories includes "Where the Devil Lost His Blanket," in which a woman is asked to transport a late stranger's ashes to South America; "The Dowry," in which a woman confronts her painful past during her father's final illness; and "The Spring House," in which a divorcee becomes the guardian of local secrets. A first collec

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The evolution of a landscape and its inhabitants binds together the tales in this eloquent, emotionally authentic debut, set in a fictional Pennsylvania river town. For the denizens of once-prosperous Tenney's Landing, the past remains at hand: prodigals both fleeing and returning explore the repercussions of childhood cruelties, tragic accidents and betrayals, as well as acts of kindness and heroism. "A clean break, wasn't that what she wanted? As if such a thing existed, as if fate might slip you a little silver hatchet and let you cut yourself free," muses the narrator of "The Springhouse," a woman who leaves her emotionally remote husband in Chicago and circles back to her parents' home. In "Jordan's Stand," a relative newcomer is appointed surrogate deer hunter by her elderly friend and neighbor, Jordan Eastman. Perched in a tree, she awaits her prey, pondering her husband's death and her new connections: "I think my widowhood draws us closer, as if the confluence of grief and old age were inevitable." Elizabeth Tenney, the protagonist in "Where the Devil Lost His Blanket," accompanies her Colombian neighbor's remains home to Bogotá in a story that highlights her provincialism at the same time it imbues her prosaic life with meaning. Rendered in graceful prose and abounding with epiphanies, Tudish's stories make a lovely, mournful collection. <
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From Booklist

In her prologue, Tudish establishes the accidental confluence of events that first led Revolutionary War veteran Lucius Tenney and four other pioneer families to settle at a bend in western Pennsylvania's Monongahela River. Such serendipity serves Tudish well throughout her collection of elegantly crafted short stories. Interconnected by virtue of their obviously shared location and subtly communicated common history, Tudish's stories follow characters as they emerge as protagonists in one tale and reappear as secondary players in another. Revisiting the lives of these subsequent generations of the town's founding families, Tudish limns an alluring portrait of a tight-knit community that, at times, threatens to become unraveled under deceptively innocuous circumstances--a wife's suspicion of her retired husband's activities and an elderly woman's disturbing memories of her son's childhood. By exposing and exploring the simultaneously fragile and tenuous bonds that unite family and friends, neighbors and strangers, rivals and allies, Tudish displays a pleasingly sublime combination of generously developed characters and scrupulously detailed settings in this dazzling debut. Carol Haggas
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Scribner (May 31, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743267672
• ISBN-13: 978-0743267670
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,067,040 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You'll Love These Stories!, July 13, 2005

By 

MetroGal - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tenney's Landing: Stories (Hardcover)

Don't be lulled by the deceptively quiet tone of these stories--just like the village of Tenney's Landing itself, there's more going on here than meets the eye. These sly stories sneak up on you and, when you least expect it, deliver a wicked wallop. There's no place like a small town to study the human condition in all of its aspects, and Tudish's stories have proven her to be a keen and sympathetic student. Enjoy!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A heartwarming beauty of a short story collection., June 18, 2005

By 

A Reader in Vermont - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tenney's Landing: Stories (Hardcover)

Tenney's Landing

This book is a rare find. I fell under the spell of Catherine Tudish's stories, and I'm so confident that others will, too, that I have already given copies to five friends. A book like this gives one hope that the world-for all its ability to inflict pain and loss-can still be sweet and tender enough to give us delight and joy.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Literary Find, June 15, 2005

By 

S. Long (Corinth, VT) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Tenney's Landing: Stories (Hardcover)

I love this book. It's a collection of stories, each one satisfying on its own, but it almost reads like a novel. Memorable characters, fascinating situations, and fine prose. I'd recommend Tenney's Landing to anyone who looks to fiction for an unjaded look at the human condition.