Year it Rained, The [Hardcover]

Crescent Dragonwagon (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Macmillan Publishing Co.; 1St Edition edition (1985)
• ASIN: B000ROM156
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,527,813 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Crescent Dragonwagon, the author of the James Beard Award-winning Passionate Vegetarian, The Cornbread Gospels, Dairy Hollow House Soup & Bread Cookbook, many children's books, and two novels, has just completed Bean by Bean.

Dragonwagon is a Southern Yankee: though born in New York, for 18 years she was innkeeper/chef/co-owner of Dairy Hollow House, an acclaimed country inn in the Ozark Mountain community of Eureka Springs, Arkansas, where she resided for 36 years. But, since 2002, she has lived in Westminster West, Vermont.

Dragonwagon has the distinction of having prepared beans and cornbread for a president (Bill Clinton), titled royalty (Princess Elizabeth of Yugoslavia), a world-renowned feminist (Betty Friedan) and Marilyn Monroe's first biographer (Maurice Zolotow). She teaches two writing workshops, Deep Feast: Writing the World through Food, and Fearless Writing, around the world (the latter, she teaches once a year, in the Whole Enchilada version, from her own home hilltop in the Green Mountains). She has appeared on Good Morning America, Today, TVFN, & CNN.

She lives, writes, and cooks in the 1795 farmhouse which once belonged to her aunt, at which she spent summers when a child. She shares the place with her partner, filmmaker David Koff, and, often, numerous well-fed friends. An ardent gardener, she's currently growing 4 different varieties of bush beans, and 5 of pole beans. .. under the supervision of her large and amiable tabby cat, Cattywhompus (who can usually be found rolling in the catmint).

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars without rain, there would be no rainbows, February 14, 2001

By 

wakeningdreamer (sf bay, ca) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Year It Rained (Paperback)

this novel may never win a literary award, but it helped save my life. i was 14 when i came across this personal & engaging story and i had already been in a psychiatric hosptial once myself. finally, i found a character i could truly relate with. someone who was neither perfect nor completely screwed up. she seemed to be a "normal" teenager with some problems coping just like i was. many of the actual details are fuzzy to me now, yet i remember really resonating with the the main character & the entire book being very welcoming & embracing. i felt a part of her journey as she struggled with complicated issues surrounding growing up: divorced parents, attempted suicide, & maturing into her own woman. it was honest without glamorizing her darker side, as much of my current reading at the time tended to do (as is the case with a lot of this genre, which makes sense as that seems to be what attracts the audience). it offered no cookie-cutter solutions or promises of rose gardens, leaving you instead with a fresh sense possibility & joy (both of which are difficult for someone struggling with depression, etc) as the narrator begins to truly embrace her life. i fully recomend it to anyone who has a tween to college age friend in their life (depending on their personality, etc) especially if they're particularly sensitive females with or without an artistic temperment as an encouraging example of the rainbows that can come after stormy adolescence. at a time when seperation from the adults in their life can become a pressing struggle, i believe someone sharing this with them could present a sign of empathy & support that can be appreciated when more direct means can sometimes feel too invasive. and even if your relationship is very open, it can provide a wonderful connection ~ especially if you read it too!

~it gave me hope~

though it has been over 15yrs since this book came into my life, i still credit it with being a shaping influence on the woman i am now so much that i feel compelled to respond to the editorial review from the school library journal that's copywrited a year after my initial review. personally, i believe it was 'whining', 'lacking in insight' & a 'self serving' 'washout'. why does trev jones focus almost entirely on the strained relationship between the mother & daughter which is a significant but not singular theme to the book? and making a point to note that the mother is a children's book author without even mentioning that elizabeth is a poet (which is a huge key to the conclusion of the book & inspires her to free herself from her dysfunctional past)? i actually agree that the animosity towards her mother was never fully clarified (in fact it seemed the author was a bit unsure of the tone desired between the two of them & i found it a bit annoying as well when reading it) however, ambiguos discontent is somewhat a halmark of adolescence, is it not? the reviewer seems close to be too personally upset to consider the targeted audience. the foundation of the book is elizabeth's attempt for autonomy & universally that seems to involve familial tension; however, elizabeth is trying to determine more than just what it is about her mother she doesn't like (indeed she even admits confusion over it) & i was inspired by the end when they seemed to reach a new level in their relationship & hoped for a similiar future friendship with my own mother. i am sad to see that it is out of print & whole-heartedly recomend that if the objective card catalog description seems the least bit intriguing, you spend a buck or two on a used copy to make up your mind. the three reviews listed here all seem to be from people who were personally touched by the book, which speaks to me of it's potential impact. and although the two customers are not professional reviewers, it seems perhaps the fact that we read it when in the demographics it was aimed at enabled us see it very differently & the fact that both of us remember it enough to be motivated to comment on it years later speaks volumes to me.

The New York Times Book Review: "Crescent Dragonwagon's writing is strong, adult, holds nothing back. Her book is shapely and satisfying and deeply touching. It has the authenticity of first-hand observation... a beautiful and significant book about love. Read it and pass it along." is available as well as a more detailed & objective description of the storyline at [...]

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Superbly real and enigmatic., April 14, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Year It Rained: A Novel (Hardcover)

Eventhough I read this book for the first time when I was sixteen years old, I still feel as if I could read it over and over again, and would never tire of it. Its subjects are real and dealt with in a way that everyday people may relate to. It was the starting point for my own literary adveture that gave me an apetite for heart-warming and heart-breaking books.