May 27, 2015
I haven't kept up much with contemporary fiction. That's mainly because I've tried to make up for my shameful negligence of important classics (which I feel like I've improved on a lot in the almost three years since I started this "challenge"). When I do go for more contemporary works, I seek out my favorite authors...otherwise, I feel like I'm taking a risk. I only mention all of this because I've noticed that there seems to be a lot of historical fiction being published these days. Is it just me? Anyway, this particular work of contemporary historical fiction was satisfying, unlike some others I have read previously.
This is a coming-of-age story of two sisters, Twiss and Milly, growing up in a small town in Wisconsin. At the start of the story, we see them as aging spinsters. Twiss had a reputation for years for healing injured birds, while Milly would bake for and entertain the people who brought them in. In modern times, business is very slow, but one morning a harried mother brings in a goldfinch she'd hit with her minivan. The bird dies, and when Milly comments to the distraught little girl that there may not be a heaven, the mother snaps that only a woman without children would say a thing like that. This causes both sisters to reflect on why Milly never wed.
Twiss never wanted to or expected to marry. As a lesbian growing up in the middle of the 20th century, the idea of a conventional married life never appealed to her. She was the more daring of the two sisters, while pretty Milly was more timid and courteous, more "ladylike." I'm making them sound like clichés but I felt like they were pretty well fleshed out.
Separately, the sisters both recall the summer that their family was torn apart. Their mother came from wealthy stock, but married a poor man. He longed to fit in with the elite of their community, and he saw a way in through his exceptional golfing skills. Golf and philandering were his vices, and after a car accident causes a mental block in his playing, he loses the former, and the latter is what ends up ruining them.
That summer, the girls' daring cousin Bett comes to visit. Twiss falls in love with her...it only seems a little weird, considering the setting and all. Milly is in love herself, with Asa, a wealthy widower's son. As all this is going on, their parents drift further apart, their mother is kicked out of the snobbish Sewing Society, and they try to come up with a way to raise money to bring Father Rice, the beloved priest who lost his faith, home again.
Much of the book seems quaint and light-hearted, but when the girls learn the truth about their father, things turn tragic very quickly. I won't get into too many details on that. Suffice it to say that for these sisters, things get too real too quickly. But they vow to stay together, and through the rest of their lives they do. They are happy, it seems, but they definitely have regrets about the past.
I enjoyed this book quite a bit. It's one of those quality character-driven stories that I really get into. I would certainly read more by Rasmussen in the future.
No comments:
Post a Comment