Seven years separate Buddy from his big brother, Lee, but the boys have always been close, comforting and protecting each other as their father - defeated by poor land and hostile weather - sank deeper into alcohol and rage. When a drink-fueled accident takes not only his life but that of the mother who tried so hard to shield her sons, the boys sell off what little remains of their daddy's tenant farm and leave Oklahoma. It is 1957, and work is still to be had in the logging camps of northern Idaho. But just outside Snake Junction, they stop at a roadhouse; and there, Lee's country-and-western talents get him a job. The two settle in, Lee to his music-and women and drink - and seventeen-year-old Buddy to roaming the landscape, at loose ends until a woman nearly twice his age turns up. Irene Sullivan is a smoky beauty, and Lee makes a play for her. But it is Buddy she wants.
By turns darkly violent and heartbreakingly tender, Finding Caruso is a work of extraordinary emotional power from an astonishingly original writer.
Book Reviews
Kirkus Reviews - Sally Wofford-Girand
A Bronte-esque debut novel about wretched families, childhood grief, love and betrayal, by poet and memoirist Barnes - told in a polished if somewhat precious voice (I abide in the whisper of wind through an old mare's bones) that sounds more evocative of Greenwich Village than Idaho.
Library Journal
Celebrated for her stories, poetry, and memoirs-especially In the Wilderness, a Pulitzer contender-Barnes tries her hand at full-length fiction. Two brothers fleeing 1950s Oklahoma after their parents' death wind up in a honky-tonk town on the edge of nowhere, where the teenaged Buddy soon becomes the prey of an older woman.
Booklist - Donna Seaman
Starred Review. Barnes is as fluent in provocative metaphors as in she in scenes of profound conflict and revelation--Buddy is forced to face the cruel consequences of family betrayals, racial hatred, and thwarted love.
Chris Offutt
Kim Barnes writes with great honesty, beauty and compassion.... This book is terrific.
One of the most celebrated writers of our time gives us his first cycle of short fiction: five brilliantly etched, interconnected stories in which music is a vivid and essential character.
In her most accomplished novel, Barbara Kingsolver takes us on an epic journey from the Mexico City of artists Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo to the America of Pearl Harbor, FDR, and J. Edgar Hoover. The Lacuna is a poignant story of a man pulled between two nations as they invent their...
The acclaimed author of Motherless Brooklyn and The Fortress of Solitude returns with a roar with this gorgeous, searing portrayal of Manhattanites wrapped in their own delusions, desires, and lies.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning author— "an immensely gifted writer and a magical prose stylist" (Michiko Kakutani, New York Times)—offers his first major work of nonfiction, an autobiographical narrative as inventive, beautiful, and powerful as his acclaimed, award-winning fiction.
Like Robin Hood, Zorro is a story that almost everyone knows, but few have read. The original book by Johnston McCulley is out of print and ...
read more
I'm 13 years old and my teacher handed me this book and told me to read and do a report on it. I looked at the cover, saw the title (which made no ...
read more
I'm 13 years old and my teacher handed me this book and told me to read and do a report on it. I looked at the cover, saw the title (which made no ...
read more
The 2009 National Book Award Winners(Nov 19 2009) The winners of the 2009 National Book Awards have been announced at the National Book Foundation's 60th National Book Awards Ceremony and Benefit...
Full Story
Google Settlement Filed(Nov 13 2009) After two delays, attorneys for the AAP, Authors Guild and Google filed an amended settlement agreement today in an effort to end litigation brought by the...
Full Story
Become a member!
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends only the most interesting and well written books and provides you with everything you need to decide which are
right for you - so you can browse the best and ignore the rest.
One Month Free Trial
Finding Caruso
Booklist - Donna Seaman
Chris Offutt
RSS feed
