Customer Reviews

A Winter Marriage: A Novel

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Fiftyish Hannie Bennet has been a wife four times. After the recent death of her latest, Hannie leaves her teenage son Joss in Africa so that she can go prospecting unhindered for numero five. Ironically at a wedding, she meets elderly international reporter Ned Renvyle. He offers her a marriage of convenience in which she would be his companion on his remote Irish farm near Youghal and she and her son would no longer have to worry about finances. They marry and move to his home and her son joins them.

Hannie hates the isolation and acts withdrawn with her husband and the villagers. Quickly, everyone detests her scorn and hatred begins to take shape towards the outsider refusing to fit in. Worse, as Josh behaves destructively, Hannie deceives her spouse and the townsfolk trying to hide a secret that could destroy everything she strives to achieve even when threatened by blackmail and violence.

A WINTER MARRIAGE is a tremendous contemporary relationship drama with deep moral roots that will surprise the audience not looking for subtle, multiple meaning allusions such as the title with several interpretations. Hannie is a wonderful protagonist whose morality seems lowly, but keep digging to see more to her soul. Ned and Joss enable the audience to observe their personal problems as well as providing an electron microscope level of depth into the heart of Hannie. Yet with all that emphasis on character, the story line never slows down until the final truths are bared. Kerry Hardie provides a strong novel that entertains the audience yet the basic themes never waver.

Harriet Klausner

I had high hopes for this book, and was initially entranced by both the characters and the atmosphere, especially the evocation of a dark and damp landscape and the claustrophobia it induces in those unaccustomed to it. I live in such a landscape myself now after many years in a sunnier clime, and thought this part of the novel most effective. But occasionally the author overreaches in her descriptions, and suddenly one is very much aware that this is a NOVEL, in exactly the same way that a bad line reading will suddenly remind you it's only a movie. Nonetheless I persevered, even staying up until 2 a.m. to finish. And that was the real disappointment: the ending is both formulaic and ambiguous, as if a sustained arc ended in a small thud. Now, days later, I wonder why I allowed these disagreeable characters to enter my life!

Hannie is not your typical heroine. She is selfish. She is only interested in two things ~~ her self-interests and her son, Joss. Sounds like a bad novel, right? Wrong. Hardie creates a complex character and a beautifully-written novel ~~ that keeps you reading from the first page to the last. It is not a fast page-turner suspense where you have to stay up all night and read till the last page is finished ~~ but it is an intense novel that keeps you guessing and thinking. Her scenery descriptions of the Irish landscape is vivid and poignant. You detect a poetress in the author when you read about the long winter twilight across the snow-covered lands. This is a beautiful book with a disturbing story.

Hannie comes to Ireland with her fifth husband, Ned, from Africa, a country that she has lived in for years. With a mystery surrounding Hannie and her son, they come to a northern country not knowing what to expect. Hannie has made it clear from the beginning that marriage is not for love. Because of that statement, this novel is written with a curiously heavy sense of sexual tension lying underneath, like a snake coiled in the sun waiting for darkness to descend. Slowly, each of the characters in this novel ~~ Hannie, Joss, Ned, Niamh, Mrs. Coady, and Ned's friends and relatives ~~ come to life and one begins to read about different character flaws or strengths. And the reader is hooked ~~ sometimes unwillingly ~~ into their stories.

If you are looking for a book that doesn't make you uncomfortable or make you think ~~ this book isn't it. Hardie writes very beautifully to keep your interest but the tension between the characters sometimes may be a bit much to take in long doses. This book is written in the classics of the old ~~ where the author writes and let the characters speak for themselves. Having just read John Steinbeck's "Winter of Our Discontent," I can say that Hardie writes similarily to his writing style ~~ heavy at times and quite insightful of the human relationships.

I give it a five ~~ though it was not always an easy read. Hardie mentions in the interview at the back of the book that she is more inclined to write poetry and this book reflects a lot of her lyrical thought. It is a book worth reading.

1-6-04

Fifty-two-year-old Hannie seems to be just who she is. She seems to paint a clear picture with her actions and her words.

Hannie is daring, bold, blunt and sometimes a bit crude, but seems to be true to herself. She has made a career of marrying for money and security for both herself and her fourteen-year-old son, Joss.

She now finds herself, again, in need of a husband and attends a wedding in hopes of finding one. Ned appears on the scene, not as obvious, but also in need of a marriage partner.

Hannie and Ned marry and he takes her to his farm in Ireland where they discover the hidden truths about each other. Their lives are brought forth in shades of gray as well as that of friends and family.

Hannie keeps Joss a mystery, wanting him to be loved and cared for, but not sure how to keep him safe from the world, or even keep the world safe from him. The mystery weaves itself throughout the story and it is not until the very end that your curiosity is satisfied.

All the while there is the background of other interesting characters in their lives, such as Danno the taxidermist, who befriends Hannie and allows her to bring her burdens to him. There is Alison, who Hannie doesn't particularly like, but finds herself confiding in her. And Niamh, the struggling artist that lives in Ned's cottage and leaves a profound mark on all.

Kerry Hardie has written a book that encompasses a woman coming into her older years with an understanding and a clarity that is unashamed. Her descriptions of Ireland fill all your senses and carry the story as it moves through their lives.

The author has given us a look at a character who, in my opinion,
is a cold-hearted, selfish, manipulative user. At the end of the book I was still unable to find a single thing I liked about her.
Hannie's mild mannered, life long bachelor husband jumped into marriage with this harridan and, lo and behold, grew to love her. Her son, Joss, has, to put it mildly, emotional problems. Her neighbors' attempts to draw her into village life are scorned and rebuffed. Despite, or perhaps because of, this lothsome character, A Winter Marriage is a worth your time.

A WINTER MARRIAGE by Kerry Hardie

A WINTER MARRIAGE, the debut novel by poet Kerry Hardie, tells the story of a middle-aged woman who seeks her fortune by marrying men. The story begins at the beginning of her fifth marriage, this time to an elderly well-traveled man named Ned whom she meets at a wedding. Besides the baggage she brings of her many marriages, she also brings with her a teenage son (Joss), who she has left in Africa while she goes on her journey to find husband number five.

The pace of the book is very slow, but at the same time there is an underlying tension that will keep the reader hooked. The mystery behind Hannie's life and her strange son Joss is what keeps the book from getting too slow. She alludes to something about his past through her narratives, but it isn't quite apparent what is wrong with Joss till much further along into the book.

In the mean time, we watch Hannie treat Ned with contempt, turn her nose up at the well-meaning neighbors, and pretty much behaves like a selfish, self-centered woman. It is obvious her need to use and manipulate others is her way of life, and the only person that is important other than her is her son Joss.

After finishing the book, I could not find one redeeming quality of Hannie's that made me feel any sympathy for her. At the same time, I think the book was well done, because it evoked such strong emotions in me as I read. The fate of Joss is up to the reader to find out, and it is not what I had expected, but yet I guess I was not too surprised either. I couldn't make up my mind whether to feel sorry for him or not. But overall, I'm giving this book, my first read of 2004, a thumbs up and four stars from Ratmammy's Reviews.

I am pretty easy to please. Give me a decent story told plainly, don't bore me to death with descriptive rants, give me a few characters I don't completely hate, and I'm happy. This novel didn't deliver anything for me. The characters stay relatively unknown throughout the book while the descriptive passages of the countryside, the rain, the rain, the cold and the rain and the thorns and the potholes and the mud and the rain are the only vivid memories I took away from this story. I still don't understand Ned and what he was thinking or feeling. I never will understand Hannie (not that I would ever want to). Mrs. Coady is the only character I halfway understood and she had very little to say. It's the same for all of the characters. The story is written as though the human element is secondary. Even history textbooks give more insight into the human psyche than this book. I read it all and I'm not sure why. Maybe as penance for all the good books I've read lately. Also, the writing was a little stiff for me. I was always aware that I was having to read the story, not that I was seeing it, let alone feeling it.

I agree with the reviewers who describe Hannie as a woman with few redeeming qualities. But don't you think Hardie wanted us to despise her, to trick us into the smugness of feeling superior to her? Hey, she got us to read the book, didn't she? For me, it was more about how eager everyone else was to bend over backwards for Hannie. I did want to wring Hannie's neck pretty regularly, but at least it kept me reading. I liked that Hardie didn't try to make a statement with character "types." And good authors throw their readers a bone now and then, like Hardie does when she lets us read all about someone who is nowhere near as GOOD or WONDERFUL as we all think we are.
My favorite part is that I still feel chilly and damp from all that Irish weather. Wish I was there! Jeeves, my galoshes, please. Jeeves? Jeeves?......

This book was one big Y-A-W-N for me. I somehow, someway struggled through it and now don't know why I even bothered. Nothing and I do mean absolutely NOTHING happens in this book until Chapter 55, and then the book seemed to wake me up for a chapter or two. I won't be reading Kerry Hardie again.