Willem's Field: A Novel [Hardcover]

Melinda Haynes (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 29, 2003

Willem Fremont has spent his adult life held tight inside the clenched fist of panic disorder. Determined to break the pattern - even as he reaches his twilight years - Willem returns to his childhood home in Purvis, Mississippi, where he believes the solution lies. There he discovers his father's acreage in the hands of the idiosyncratic Till family. Eilene, mother of Sonny and Bruno and "no bigger than a dress form," pretends to be deaf as a way of dealing with her grown boys - each of whom suffers from inertia. Sonny, hugely fat, perennially unemployed, and looking for love, is building a shrimp boat in his mother's land-locked backyard. Bruno, who has returned from Vietnam with a spinal injury and wearing a brace, escapes into the glossy pages of old National Geographics while his wife Leah tries to find a small measure of comfort in the day to day tending of their farm. From these unsettled lives comes a story of reconciliation against all odds and a vision of rekindled love as well as a compassionate portrait of small town life that celebrates the unusual, embraces the unwanted and opens its arms to all lost souls in search of a home.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The rural South is once again the backdrop in a novel by Haynes (Chalktown; the Oprah pick Mother of Pearl), this one a generous, darkly comic tale of homecoming and family strife. Set in the 1970s, the book focuses on Willem Fremont-a man in his 70s with a panic disorder so extreme that he is panicked by the sight of a cardboard sign turning in the wind. As an anxious Willem drives from Colorado to his family's land in Purvis, Miss., the readers meet the Till family, who own the land next to Willem's. Eilene Till is so unhappy with her life and her grown sons that she pretends to be deaf, especially around her obese youngest son, Sonny, whom she dislikes greatly. Bruno, her eldest son, must wear a brace as the result of a Vietnam spinal injury and is perpetually depressed. His wife, Leah, has taken over the farming duties and is searching for a missing cow when she falls into a sinkhole and finds not only her cow but a house and artesian well that make her feel as if she's discovered her own private world. When Willem finally reaches Purvis, he rediscovers his land and the sinkhole that almost swallowed him as a teen. He also discovers Eilene Till, who intrigues, frustrates and eventually charms him. When Willem faces the biggest crisis of his life, the Till family is forced to confront its problems and reunite in order to try to save Willem from himself. Haynes poignantly captures the isolated farm life of Purvis and the loneliness each main character feels. She also smartly portrays secondary characters, like Leah's dejected mother, Dora, and Alyce, a sweetly intriguing single mother. The result is a carefully crafted, moving novel, infused with wry humor and attuned to the rhythms of country life.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Like the author's previous two novels, the Oprah-anointed Mother of Pearl (2001) and Chalktown (2002), Haynes' latest novel is set in small-town Mississippi, this time in Purvis during the early 1970s. Seventy-year-old Willem Fremont has returned to Purvis to revisit his childhood home. Eilene Till, the current owner, is bitter about and disappointed in her two grown sons, Bruno and Sonny. Eilene spends her days pretending to be deaf so that she can yell at them. Bruno, wounded in the Vietnam War and forced to wear a neck brace, pushes his wife, Leah, away, even as he grows closer to Alyce, a young woman who shows up at his doorstep one day selling expensive vacuum cleaners. Sonny--obese, unemployed, and aimless--is in debt and falling in love with a stripper named Conchita, whose mother works at the hotel owned by Alyce and her deadbeat husband, Joe. Willem shows up at Alyce's hotel, but his battles with panic disorder make his stay stressful and difficult. Haynes' graceful transitions from one character to another link them in a quietly beautiful though sometimes slow-paced novel. Expect demand from Oprah devotees. Kristine Huntley
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 416 pages
• Publisher: Free Press; First Edition edition (April 29, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743238494
• ISBN-13: 978-0743238496
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,317,898 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best so far in 2003, May 4, 2003

By 

Ratmammy "The Ratmammy" (Ratmammy's Town, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Willem's Field: A Novel (Hardcover)

WILLEMS FIELD by Melinda Haynes

If you are in the mood for something different, try reading Melinda Haynes dark comedy WILLEMS FIELD. Full of quirky characters, it takes place in Purvis, Mississippi, a stereotypical small rural town. In the opening chapter, we are introduced to Willem Fremont, a successful businessman who also suffers from extreme panic attacks. He is on his way to Purvis to find his childhood home, in the hopes of remembering what caused him to have these panic attacks to begin with. So bad are these attacks that he finds himself sometimes fainting, or reacting in a manner that only an insane person would react. In this scene, Willem is having a meal at a roadside restaurant, and a paper crown dangling from the doorway of the restaurant is starting to make him crazy. As this paper crown continues to move with the wind that is blowing from outside, he can only hold it in for so long when he suddenly runs to the door and starts to scream. This is just one of his typical attacks. The oddest movement or thought will set him off, and he has no way to control it.

In the meantime, the Till family back in Purvis are going about their every day lives. They are the family that happen to live on the land that is next to Willems old family plot, but decades ago the land was abandoned for reasons unknown. The Tills began to pay the taxes on this property, so now the descendants have legal rights to it. It is this land that Willem Fremont is in search of.

The Tills comprise of Bruno and Sonny, brothers both of whom live on this land. Sonny lives with their mother Eilene, and to Eilenes disappointment, Sonny doesnt know the meaning of the word work. He lies around all day, eating and working on a boat that he thinks will help him make some sort of living. Bruno is a Vietnam War vet and he too sits around all day, claiming that a neck injury prevents him from doing anything, including sex. His wife Leah takes care of their farm, looking after the cattle and their crops. She has no choice, as there is no one else that will do it. And brother-in-law Sonny does everything he can to get out of doing any of the work on the farm.

Leah becomes a pivotal character when she falls into a ravine while in search of a missing cow, and there she finds a whole new world, including the missing cow and a house that had been abandoned years ago. She returns to this place often, and it is one of the places where the worlds of the Tills and Willem Fremont collide.

It would take too long to fully describe all the characters and the various sub plots of WILLEMS FIELD. However, Id like to state that although it took me a while to fully get into the book, by the third chapter or so I was fully absorbed in the lives of the Tills and poor Willems panic attacks. It isnt apparent in the beginning, but there is a point to this book, despite the different storylines that weave in and out of the story. Once I completed reading the book, I was able to say that this was probably one of the best books Ive read in 2003.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars True and Honest People., May 18, 2003

By 

Mary Gerhardt (Washington, MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Willem's Field: A Novel (Hardcover)

These people could be my neighbors! Haynes' characters were placed and portrayed in such a way that I felt like I was watching this whole sensitive and serious, yet incredibly humorous story right from a house next door. The Writer has a way of 'curling a statement,' causing me to re-read certain sections for my own pure enjoyment. Willem's Field is a cleverly orchestrated story that left me fervent to find out what outlandish thing would happen next. My favorite chapters were 'Willem and the moles,' which comforted not only an old man in an impossible situation, but me as well; and 'Sonny and Conchita and the tap shoes,' which I dare anyone to read with a straight face. Melinda Haynes has a style I thoroughly enjoy, and she's placed it in a book I couldn't put down. I highly recommend this great read.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Multi-layered wonder, May 20, 2003

By 

Mike Talbert (Eupora) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Willem's Field: A Novel (Hardcover)

I just read a strange review of Willem's Field in the Washington Post and wondered if the reviewer had read the same book I did. The first thing she did was type-cast Haynes as a woman's writer. (Her evidence was that Haynes first book was an Oprah selection). After reading my third Haynes book in Willem's Field, I wonder how the reviewer came up with that soubriquet. By her standards Pat Conroy is a military brat writer and Amy Tan is a Chinese immigrant kid's writer. It totally ignores what raises Haynes to the level of outstanding writer. Though Haynes sets her books in the South, I don't find her a genre writer. If she has a genre it is like that of Walker Percy's -- redemption in the face of everyday repression.
One of the worst things that one can do about Willem's Field is to judge it by synopsis as the Post writer did. I don't know any artist who would survive such a judgement; Melville, Faulkner (a frequent victim of the technique in his lifetime) and Twain couldn't survive such a spiritless scrutiny.
Willem's Field is a seductive work. It blends a field (pun accidental)of black humor with a deep introspection. Haynes does it with her greatest gift, her canvas of words. And one of the amazing things is that in situations where you can feel like laughing outloud, but still feel emotionally tied to the characters. Haynes loves all her characters. With one noticeable exception. And she has you grinning with nasty, gloating justice when he meets a gruesome and most unladylike end.
One caveat: Willems Field requires an enjoyment of reading for the sake of reading, with reading being a creative experience of its own. Is is a seductive process. The opening chapter of the book works because she draws the reader into this creation, which sets off a panic attack by an old man whose life is being destroyed by the affliction. It could have been off-putting, but Haynes makes it something special by treating panic disorder that is also a part of her own life with that dark humor. She can be rough and raunchy at times. She writes from life.
I loved the book, and find it the best of her three. There is a growth in her fiction that is delightful.