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Vaughn Public Library - Ashland

A farm under a lake

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Average Rating
Publisher:
Graywolf Press
Pub. Date:
1989
Language:
English
Description
As she takes May, an old woman she has cared for, to live with her daughter in Illinois, Janet recalls a summer twenty-years past when she loved two brothers but finally married one
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ISBN:
9781555971199
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Grouping Information

Grouped Work ID48cf1c92-adbd-ca8a-03a0-233b7ae7c8b9
Grouping Titlefarm under a lake
Grouping Authormartha bergland
Grouping Categorybook
Grouping LanguageEnglish (eng)
Last Grouping Update2024-04-12 20:17:36PM
Last Indexed2024-04-19 04:56:12AM

Solr Fields

accelerated_reader_point_value
0
accelerated_reader_reading_level
0
author
Bergland, Martha, 1945-
author_display
Bergland, Martha
available_at_ashland
Ashland Vaughn Public Library
detailed_location_ashland
Ashland Adult Fiction
display_description
The title is apt for this first novel, in which everything has the slow yet magnified quality of being underwater--both real and unreachable. Narrator Janet Hawn, a 40-year-old private-duty nurse, is driving from Wisconsin to Illinois, transporting an elderly, senile patient named May to the home of her daughter. Janet's own roots are also in Illinois, and as she drives, old memories are stirred. Her thoughts drift back 20 years to the summer just before she married her husband Jack, a summer when she was in love with Jack's brother, Carl. Now, Jack--whom she has left waiting for her in Wisconsin--is unemployed and depressed, a man without purpose, a farmer, as a local saying goes, ""with a farm under a lake."" As she travels towards home, Janet sees the necessity to come to terms with her feelings for Carl and to rescue Jack--to bring him back to the surface of life. After her slow-motion start, she gets down to action quickly with a visit to Carl's farm and a phone call, guaranteed to make Jack res-spond. This impulsive, fast-acting Janet is the same one we've glimpsed in the flashbacks here when she was a warm and confused college girl in love with two brothers. But for much of this book Janet Hawn seems cleareyed but remote, almost icy, as if she were under a lake herself. She details her love and concern for Jack and for old May, but her precise and humorless monologue never quite convinces us. Bergland can write with plenty of feeling--it's there in all the scenes of Janet's reminiscences, which are wonderful, earthy, and evocative with farm life. But too much of the novel is washed away. Beautifully clear, but strangely colorless, it slips right through our fingers.
format_ashland
Book
format_category_ashland
Books
id
48cf1c92-adbd-ca8a-03a0-233b7ae7c8b9
isbn
9781555971199
itype_ashland
BOOK - HARDCOVER
last_indexed
2024-04-19T09:56:12.503Z
lexile_score
-1
literary_form
Fiction
literary_form_full
Fiction
local_callnumber_ashland
BERGLAND
owning_library_ashland
Ashland Vaughn Public Library
owning_location_ashland
Ashland Vaughn Public Library
primary_isbn
9781555971199
publishDate
1989
publisher
Graywolf Press
recordtype
grouped_work
subject_facet
Domestic fiction
Farm life -- Fiction
Illinois -- Fiction
Married people -- Fiction
Pastoral fiction
title_display
A farm under a lake
title_full
A farm under a lake / by Martha Bergland
title_short
A farm under a lake
topic_facet
Farm life
Married people

Solr Details Tables

item_details

Bib IdItem IdShelf LocCall NumFormatFormat CategoryNum CopiesIs Order ItemIs eContenteContent SourceeContent URLDetailed StatusLast CheckinLocation
ils:.b11545720.i20110273Ashland Adult FictionBERGLAND1falsefalseAvailableJul 01, 2021asfic

record_details

Bib IdFormatFormat CategoryEditionLanguagePublisherPublication DatePhysical DescriptionAbridged
ils:.b11545720BookBooksEnglishGraywolf Press1989199 pages ; 23 cm

scoping_details_ashland

Bib IdItem IdGrouped StatusStatusLocally OwnedAvailableHoldableBookableIn Library Use OnlyLibrary OwnedHoldable PTypesBookable PTypesLocal Url
ils:.b11545720.i20110273On ShelfAvailablefalsetruetruefalsefalsetrue9999