Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Aug 2007
304 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
The Owen children long ago left their gracious family home in Point Clear, Alabama, in favor of points north. But when their father takes ill, the youngest, Bonnie, who has spent a decade in Manhattan as an unsuccessful actress, returns to care for him. Soon after his death—unbeknownst to her siblings—she falls in love with and marries a handsome evangelical preacher, and together the couple takes up residence in the stately Owen mansion.
When they receive Bonnie’s letter announcing her marriage, Ellen and Morris head for Alabama, believing they must extricate their troublesome sister from her latest mistake. To their surprise, they find that Bonnie’s charismatic young husband, Pastor, has already saved her from her self-destructive ways, and Bonnie is now nearly three months pregnant. But Bonnie has only recently informed Pastor that Morris is gay, and Pastor quickly undertakes a campaign to “save” him as well . . .
"Though McFarland imparts a religious message that feels heavy-handed in spots, his ability to tap the hearts and minds of his carefully considered characters adds up to an evocative novel." - PW.
This information about Letter from Point Clear was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Photo: Larry Keane
Dennis McFarland is the bestselling author of seven novels: Nostalgia, Letter from Point Clear, Prince Edward, Singing Boy, A Face at the Window, School for the Blind, and The Music Room. His short fiction has appeared in The American Scholar, The New Yorker, Prize Stories: the O'Henry Awards, Best American Short Stories, and elsewhere. He has received a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Wallace E. Stegner Fellowship from Stanford University, where he has also taught creative writing. He lives in rural Vermont with his wife, writer and poet Michelle Blake.
The Stolen Child
by Ann Hood
An unlikely duo ventures through France and Italy to solve the mystery of a child’s fate.
Daughters of Shandong
by Eve J. Chung
Eve J. Chung's debut novel recounts a family's flight to Taiwan during China's Communist revolution.
The silence between the notes is as important as the notes themselves.
Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
