Customer Reviews

We Are All Welcome Here

5 star:		(33)
4 star:		(22)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(12)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

If you are a fan of Elizabeth Berg books, then you know you are in for an emotional ride. This novel doesn't disappoint ~ I wasn't able to put it down. It opened up with a note from the author, how a fan had written to her an requested she write the story of her mother's life. Berg immediately didn't want to commit to such a task, but after learning more about this amazing woman's mother, she agreed and said it would be a fictional account. The result is amazing.

Paige Dunn is married and pregnant. She is diagnosed with Polio and delivers her baby, Diana, in an iron lung. Paige lives in the lung for three years; her husband leaves her and after that time in the hospital, she is able to return home to the care of two caregivers in order to raise her daughter, as best as she is able. The time is 1964 and the story is set in Tupelo, MS. The plot is woven with civil rights, sweepstakes and an Elvis surprise in the ending is a twist!

Diana is thirteen when the story opens and in her forties by the end of the book. The novel is a testament to a lovely, beautiful woman, Paige Dunn, and her strong will to live her life as it is (she can only move her head) and raise her daughter, whom she loves so much.

The title is significant because it touches on several characters in the book. WE ARE ALL WELCOME HERE had me absorbed from page one. I urge you to read it and be moved too!

This was a wonderful book! Elizabeth Berg has done it again with a fascinating story about a an adult woman polio survivor, her adolescent daughter, and her housekeeper/friend. She provided some thought provoking issues regarding the difficulties encountered by a single mother that is handicapped, the responsibilities of a child to a parent and vice versa, and how sometimes "family" comes in the form of someone not related by blood.

This was one of those books that made you feel that you know the characters. I was sorry when the book came to an end. I highly recommend it!

A heartwarming story. I learned interesting things in this book. For example, one of the main characters had polio and can only move her head...however, she can feel everything! I didn't know that was possible! So, not only do you learn a little, you are entertained by a wonderful story about friendship, parenting, the race problems of the 60's, and of coarse...growing up. What's not to love? This is a book that's rather short, but not short in it's story. Sometimes just as you learn about the characters the story ends. Not in this case. Berg did a good job letting us know the characters and finishing the book up in a way we feel content. I don't think you'll waste your time at all!!

It's not often that a fan letter can prompt a book, but such is the case in Elizabeth Berg's fifteenth novel, We Are All Welcome Here. The story has its roots in real life but the characters and the plot are purely from Berg's imagination and the story is as richly developed as her other works.

In 1951, Paige Dunn is a vibrant young woman, twenty-two years old, nine months pregnant, and happily married. Then she contracts polio. The fact that she was able to deliver a healthy baby girl while in an iron lung is an amazing feat all in itself. Paige is a strong-willed and, despite her husband leaving her, is determined to raise Diana. She hires caregivers, moves into a small, two-bedroom home in Tupelo, Mississippi, and moves on with life. She spends the next three years in that dreaded machine and the rest of her life on a respirator.

The story picks up in 1964. Thirteen-year-old Diana's best friend is neighbor Suralee Holloway. The two put on plays they've written, go into town for an ice cream cone, dream about boys, and collect Sweetnuf box tops.

While the story is told from Diana's point of view, the overpowering presence of Paige and her self-determination take center stage. She may only be able to move her head, but she is a mother first and foremost, guiding and disciplining her growing daughter.

In the background is the Civil Rights Movement. The daytime caregiver, Peacie, and her boyfriend, LaRue, become actively involved. Then there are the social workers who monitor Paige and Diana's caregivers. The reader soon realizes that little had changed in that arena. And of course, there is the shadow of Elvis. You cannot have a story set in the sixties in Tupelo, Mississippi, without mentioning the King.

Without a doubt, Berg captures the feminine voice and mind in We Are All Welcome Here. She always does. But not since her third novel, Talk Before Sleep, has Berg been so poignant and eloquent, turning trouble into laughter, tears into smiles and longings into realities.

Armchair Interviews says: An emotional story of a time of great turmoil and change in our country, how polio affected so many, and of course, civil rights issues.

I absolutely love Elizabeth Berg--and I've read everything by her, but I am still waiting for her "Talk Before Sleep," "Pull of the Moon," and "When the Real Thing Comes Along," voice. I will wait forever if I must--because I know 'that voice' is dying to emerge: That voice with insight, charm, wisdom, and wit; that voice that goes directly to the heart and holds it between the teeth.

"We Are All Welcome Here" has its moments, but those moments are few and in between. For example, Peacie is a brilliant, diamond like character. She is the reason I continued reading. I mean, we all know somebody like Peacie--one who is externally hard, but internally beautiful. This one characterzation of Peacie cannot make this book work, though. The other characters, even the mother, Paige, are flat and non-demensional.

But I loved the part about Elvis Presley. This added suprise and excitement. But it still wasn't enough to help the book.

I am waiting, Elizabeth---Come back! Come back! Bring your readers that old, gorgeous voice; the one where you never held back, the one that made us love you from the very beginning.

First a word about the audiobook: the author recorded this novel herself, which is always a gamble. She pulled it off quite well with one exception. The only voice which didn't seem right to be was the first person narrator -- Berg did a much better job with the secondary characters.

Domestic drama like this can easily sink into the melodramatic abyss. You've got a quadraplegic woman struggling to keep afloat financially; her husband left her when she came down with polio -- at nine months pregnant -- and the only help he offered was to see that the baby was adopted. A real peach of a guy.

The daughter (Diana) narrates. This is her coming of age story, and as such it explores her ties to her mother and to Peacie, the black woman who has cared for them both since Diana's birth. It's about poverty and how weary it makes people. It's about the sixties, segregation, voting rights, racism. It's about Elvis Presley.

Berg is juggling a great deal, but she does so with finesse. The last chapter wobbles precariously, because Berg wants to leave these characters in a good place, but a lot of very bad things have happened. So there's a bit of magic there, of the authorial kind. I can't say more without giving too much away, but I can say this: I was very moved by the last few scenes, though the whole time I was also aware of the heavy handed nature of the resolution. It still worked for me on some (sentimental) level.

There's nothing wrong with sentiment, with emotion, with happy endings. I'm just not sure about the way Berg produced them, in this instance.

What attracted my attention to this novel is the fact it was inspired by the life story of one of Berg's fans. The author wasn't comfortable at first with the thought of writing someone else's autobiography, instead telling the woman to find another writer or just write the story herself. After she heard a little more of the story, however, she changed her mind.

What compelled Elizabeth Berg is surely what also compells the reader. We are All Welcome Here tells the story of a woman stricken with polio in 1960's Mississippi. During the last month of her pregnancy Paige Dunn begins to feel terribly ill. At first she believes she's going into premature labor, but by the next day she's completely paralyzed. A month later, confined to an iron lung, Paige gives birth to her baby girl, Diana. Also around that time her husband leaves, unable to handle the fact his beautiful young wife will not only never walk again, but will also never be able to breathe on her own. When he offers to take the child with him and care for her, Paige's response is an expletive. There is no way she would ever consider giving up her daughter.

Paige is left nearly destitute, receiving only a pittance from the state that's barely enough to keep body and soul together. Mother and daughter rely on handouts of used clothing, donated food, and other items from their neighbors in Tupelo, Mississippi. Peacie, a young black woman, comes to work for the Dunns, becoming a second mother to Diana. With the help of her strength and dedication Paige and her daughter are able to make a sort of life for themselves.

Thirteen year old Diana is at the heart of this story. When the tale opens she's hitting puberty with a vengeance, but unlike all her other friends she has no free time, and barely a dime to spend on the clothes and magazines she covets. Most of Diana's free time is spent helping to care for her mother. She doesn't sleep through the night out of fear her mother's ventilator tube will clog, or the power will go out, leaving her mother vulnerable. Understandably, she becomes resentful, and much of the story revolves around Diana and her coming of age.

We are All Welcome Here does deliver a compelling storyline. The best parts are those dealing with Paige and her desperate battle to keep going, and keep her family together. Female readers will most likely identify with Diana, whose struggle with adolesence is portrayed in a very sympathic manner. However, its worst flaw is that at times the plotline strays into improbability. Not knowing exactly where the line falls between fiction and nonfiction it's difficult to say whether the very improbable-sounding ending is real or imagined, but it does have a very unreal feel to it.

Stories about coming of age in the Deep South during the civil rights era are plentiful. Berg's depiction seems for the most part accurate, but at times the "voice" of her 13-year old main character doesn't quite ring true. There is no real shift between the voices of Diana and Paige, thus the younger woman comes off sounding far more mature than your average teenager, even if she has been forced to grow up and assume adult duties before her time.

A far more authentic-sounding voice can be found in the novels of Carson McCullers, who wrote coming of age stories set in her home state of Georgia during the 1930s/1940s. Her novels The Member of the Wedding and The Heart is a Lonely Hunter are masterpieces of southern literature. Those who enjoy the themes presented in Berg's novel may want to explore further in the books of Carson McCullers.

Elizabeth Berg has written several humane, touching, so real they hurt novels about relationships: patient/nurse (the affecting "Never Change"), families ("Say When"): and she's written them with uncommon grace, knowledge and understanding of what makes Us tick.
The genesis of "We are All Welcome Here" was a letter from a fan, Marianne Raming asking Berg to write about her Mother who was stricken with Polio before Marianne was born. In the prologue to this novel, Berg at first recoils then warms to the idea, telling her fan: "(your) Mother's circumstances will serve only as inspiration for a different story that I will make up...if you want her real story to be told, contact a non-fiction writer."
Unfortunately, Berg may have had better luck writing this book in the non-fiction form for as it is "WAAWH" is mostly flat and uninvolving except that the central story: a Mother trying everything that she can to raise her child despite being incapacitated by Polio and living in an Iron Lung, is without a doubt rife with drama and tension. Berg's novel isn't. What it is, is flat and oddly enough very much like reportage.Berg, in her quest to avoid the trappings of non-fiction, falls victim to them nonetheless with the "just the facts" style of prose she adopts here.
And then I read this gorgeous scene at the very end of the novel: "It's everywhere, she said and those were the last words I heard her speak. She meant redemptive beauty, I think. Despite her many obstacles, what my mother succeeded best in doing was appreciating the many forms of beauty in life...as well as its possibilities. And she relished perhaps more than any other mother could the growth of her daughter, seeing in me a part of herself set free."
If only this novel as a whole could have been as elegant, as perceptive, as intelligent as these last few words on the last page of this book.

Elizabeth Berg understands the importance of character development and paints incredible verbal portraits of all of her characters. The people in this book came to life for me, and I was sorry when I came to the end. That, to me, is the mark of an excellent writer.

I respect Ms. Berg's ability to diversify. Every book she writes is fresh and she is never formulaic. She is able to capture the "voice" in her characters and can tell a story from varying perspectives. Her characters are always true to themselves, and their experience.

This book tackles several serious topics but doesn't hit the reader over the head with politics. Ms. Berg gently educates through the story, allowing readers of all ages a chance to experience events that may otherwise be remote to them. The 1960s were a time of great turbulance in this country, and people who did not live through it can experience a taste of what it was like through the characters in this book. The scourge of polio was real and the civil rights movement was a part of history that needs to be recognized. Thanks to Elizabeth Berg for yet another fine effort.

I just finished listening to this book, and I was blown away. The story was very engrossing, and the character of Peacie was witty and added humor to the overall serious nature of the book. I loved listening to the reader voice the various characters- she did an excellent job and I wondered which actress it was. It turns out the reader was Elizabeth Berg herself! I can't say enough how much I enjoyed this book. It was a breath of fresh air. There are so many parallels between the various characters, and the story is deep even though told from the point of view of a 13-year-old girl (now grown up). I 100% recommend it, especially if you are going to listen to it.