Amazon.com: The Storm: A Novel: Frederick Buechner: Books

The Storm: A Novel (Hardcover)

by Frederick Buechner (Author) "They say that Kenzie Maxwell married Willow because she was the only woman he still knew at the time who could afford him..." (more)
Key Phrases: beach pavilion, engagement book, Miss Sickert, Violet Sickert, Plantation Island (more...)

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Amazon.com
An island. A storm. A shipwreck. An exiled old man with a beautiful daughter--sound familiar? If The Tempest comes to mind, you're close. Frederick Buechner bases his novel The Storm on Shakespeare's melancholy last play, but adds some distinctly 20th-century twists of his own. The protagonist of this tall tale is Kenzie Maxwell, an elderly writer living off his third wife's money on an island in South Florida. Kenzie's 70th birthday is coming up, and his family starts to gather: his illegitimate daughter, Bree, comes from New York; and so does his estranged brother, Dalton--the man responsible for his leaving New York in disgrace many years before. Also along for the ride is Dalton's appealing young stepson, Nandy; Kenzie's mystical wind-surfer pal, Averill; and Calvert, the boorish gardener. Readers familiar with the play will instantly recognize who's who in this gallery of characters. Though the party gets off to a rocky start and a tempest is brewing just off shore, by the time Buechner finishes working his own rough magic, The Storm becomes a harbinger not of disaster but of reconciliation and love. --Margaret Prior

From Publishers Weekly
Clergyman and novelist Buechner (On the Road with the Archangel) switches from the Bible to the Bard for a tale of two brothers' reconciliation inspired by The Tempest. Cast in the role of Prospero is Kenzie Maxwell, a dapper and somewhat pretentious septuagenarian novelist who has settled with his rich third wife on an island off the Southern Florida coast. For 20 years, he has been estranged from his law professor brother, Dalton, and distanced from his daughter, Bree, the product of a melancholy affair with a 17-year-old inner-city graffiti artist who tagged her work "Kia." The upright Dalton blamed Kenzie for the scandal that shook the shelter for homeless youths where Kia and Kenzie met and on whose board Dalton sat. Kenzie, however, has been unable to forgive his brother for his callousness over Kia's death during childbirth. Other semi-Shakespearean characters include Nandy Maxwell, Dalton's ne'er-do-well stepson (Ferdinand); Averill, the ethereal Buddhist wind-surfing son of Kenzie's new wife (Ariel); and Clavert Sykes, Kenzie's drunken handyman, who claims to be the illegitimate heir to most of the island's real estate (Caliban). Buechner sets the stage for reconciliation as this far-flung family is drawn by various means to Plantation Island, and, inverting his source, makes a tempest the climax of their conflicting natures. If Buechner's version of the classic tale lacks the comic relief of the original, he is a fluent storyteller with a fine eye for character and a rich prose style that easily handles poetic tropes.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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