From the award-winning author of The Gardens of Kyoto comes this witty and incisive novel about the lives and attitudes of a group of women -- once country-club housewives; today divorced, independent, and breaking the rules.
In Our Kind, Kate Walbert masterfully conveys the dreams and reality of a group of women who came into the quick rush of adulthood, marriage, and child-bearing during the 1950s. Narrating from the heart of ten companions, Walbert subtly depicts all the anger, disappointment, vulnerability, and pride of her characters: "Years ago we were led down the primrose lane, then abandoned somewhere near the carp pond."
Now alone, with their own daughters grown, they are finally free -- and ready to take charge: from staging an intervention for the town deity to protesting the slaughter of the country club's fairway geese, to dialing former lovers in the dead of night.
Walbert's writing is quick-witted and wry, just like her characters, but also, in its cumulative effect, moving and sad. Our Kind is a brilliant, thought-provoking novel that opens a window into the world of a generation and class of women caught in a cultural limbo.
Despite glowing media reviews, these connected short stories are hard going and not as enjoyable as Walbert's earlier book, 'The Gardens of Kyoto' It is not clear if it was the ephemeral writing style or the subject matter that didn't gel...the characters would work better if they said what they had to say, instead of making the reader do the work of understanding them - especially as the reader may not be interested enough in the characters' lives to make the effort. (Reviewed by BookBrowse Review Team).
Organic Style
Walbert adores her characters...they're...giddy, resilient possessors of a girlish beauty. They have a blast; the reader does too.
Chicago Tribune
A portrait emerges from selective moments--some sharp and painful, others tender and questing. They evoke all the details.
Newsday
There's no denying Walbert's talent - or her ambition.
The New York Times - Jennifer Egan
One of the many pleasures to be found in Our Kind, a ''novel in stories,'' is the fact that Walbert's chosen genre is acutely suited to her artistic goals.....Had Walbert tried to force her material into a more conventional format, the result would very likely have been diffuse and flat. In its present form, though, Our Kind works pragmatically, and its fractured telling accumulates a sneaky, wrenching power.
The Washington Post - Elizabeth Gold
Walbert, author of The Gardens of Kyoto, has written a touching and often surreal group of linked stories about being born a little too late for one era and a little too early for the next.
The New York Times Book Review - Laura Miller
[E]xquisite. Of all [the] first-person narrators, this gang is the most inviting. They are good company.
Publishers Weekly
In an era when women went to college to study the three Gs Grooming, Grammar, and Grace, Walbert's characters are caught like insects in amber as they make late-in-life discoveries no school could ever teach. Brittle, funny and poignant, this is a prickly treat.
Booklist - Elsa Gaztambide
Walbert daringly depicts the golden years of a generation of women, better described as the 1950s country-club set, now that they're either divorced or widowed and their homes are devoid of children.....An eye-opening experience for anyone who thinks that the 1950s woman is still in the kitchen wearing a housecoat.
Kirkus Reviews
Whole lives are handled with grace, deftness, and skill . . . [these pieces] are among the finest there can be.
Recent Reader Reviews
Rated of 5
by Easily annoyed
I would recommend to no one this collection of muddled, poorly written, sophomoric stories. I know this book got good reviews. Why? Do reviewers these days consider it creative to neglect rules of grammar and logic? Good writing is what it is... Read More
Kate Walbert
made her writing debut in 1998 with Where She Went, a collection of
interlinked stories about the lives and travels of a mother
and daughter. Marion moves frequently, a lifestyle that
never permits her to form a stable identity. Her daughter
Rebecca, by contrast, travels with the intent of "finding
herself," but only becomes more and more rootless in the
process. The New York Times named
Where She Went a Notable Book of 1998 and said that it
"contains many quick flashes of beauty. . .it goes far and
takes us with it."
In 2001 she published
The Gardens of Kyoto - a
bittersweet story about the friendship between two cousins
prior to World War II. The novel is based on her
...
Two couples meet in a luxurious Caribbean resort - one pair older, the other younger. As their paths cross during the week, each couple struggles with what has been keeping them apart.
Funny, heartbreaking, and alive with a potpourri of eccentric and irresistible characters, Broken for You is a testament to the saving graces of surrogate families, and shows how far the tiniest repair jobs can go in righting the world’s wrongs.
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Fearless, gripping, at once darkly funny and tender, spanning three continents and numerous lives, Americanah is a richly told story set in today's globalized world.
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Kenn Nesbitt is new Children's Poet Laureate(Jun 12 2013) Kenn Nesbitt has been named the new Children's Poet Laureate: Consultant in Children's Poetry to the Poetry Foundation, which noted that the two-year position...
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The New York Times Book Review - Laura Miller
of 5
by Easily annoyed
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