The Practice House by Laura McNeal: book review

The Practice House (2017) is set in Ayr, a Scottish village, in 1929, moves to Kansas in America, and ends in California in 1957.

In Ayr, Scotland, sisters Aldine and Eileen McKenna live with their aunt, Charity Sedgewick McKenna – whom they call Aunt Sedge. Three Mormon men, Elder Cooper, Elder Forehead, and Elder Lance, knock on the door, preaching their religion – the Church of Jesus Christ and the Latter Day Saints – and Salt Lake City in the land of America.

Eileen converts and leaves Scotland to marry Elder William Cooper. When she arrives in America, she writes to her sister Aldine, asking her to join them. Aldine does – and takes up a teaching job in a one-room school, Stony Bank’s country school, in the Great Plains of Dorland, Kansas – two thousand miles from her sister.

She lives with Ansel Price, his wife Eleanour (Ellie), and their three children: Charlotte, Clarence, and Geneva (Neva). The story drifts through the Depression years of the 1930s, drought, illnesses and deaths, and from one hardship to another.

The title of the book comes from the daughter Charlotte. An influential older man, Mr McNamara, falls in love with Charlotte in California, and secures a job for her as a teacher in a Practice House – a classroom for home economics where high school girls learn to cook, sew, and keep house.

It’s a long depressing story. The pace of the story picks up when Ellie Price inherits a restaurant in California. Tensions begin between Ellie, who thinks Califorinia is an exciting paradise (away from the broken dreams of Dorland), and her husband who pines for the farm back in Kansas (away from the shallow life of California).

MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

Comments

Pir-E-Kamil - The Perfect Mentor by Umera Ahmed: book review

The Perfect Mentor pbuh (2011) is set in Lahore and Islamabad in Pakistan. The novel commences with Imama Mubeen in medical university. She wants to be an eye specialist. Her parents have arranged for her to marry her first cousin Asjad. Salar Sikander, her neighbour, is 18 years old with an IQ of 150+ and a photographic memory. He has long hair tied in a ponytail. He imbibes alcohol, treats women disrespectfully and is generally a “weird chap” and a rude, belligerent teenager. In the past three years he has tried to commit suicide three times. He tries again. Imama and her brother, Waseem, answer the servant’s call to help Salar. They stop the bleeding from his wrist and save his life. Imama and Asjad have been engaged for three years, because she wants to finish her studies first. Imama is really delaying her marriage to Asjad because she loves Jalal Ansar. She proposes to him and he says yes. But he knows his parents won’t agree, nor will Imama’s parents. That

Flaws in the Glass, a self-portrait by Patrick White: book review

The manuscript, Flaws in the Glass (1981), is Patrick Victor Martindale White’s autobiography. White, born in 1912 in England, migrated to Sydney, Australia, when he was six months old. For three years, at the age of 20, he studied French and German literature at King’s College at the University of Cambridge in England. Throughout his life, he published 12 novels. In 1957 he won the inaugural Miles Franklin Literary Award for Voss, published in 1956. In 1961, Riders in the Chariot became a best-seller, winning the Miles Franklin Literary Award. In 1973, he was the first Australian author to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for The Eye of the Storm, despite many critics describing his works as ‘un-Australian’ and himself as ‘Australia’s most unreadable novelist.’ In 1979, The Twyborn Affair was short-listed for the Booker Prize, but he withdrew it from the competition to give younger writers the opportunity to win the award. His autobiography, Flaws in the Glass

The Beggars' Strike by Aminata Sow Fall: book review

The Beggar’sStrike (1979 in French and 1981 in English) is set in an unstated country in West Africa in a city known only as The Capital. Undoubtedly, Senegalese author Sow Fall writes of her own experiences. It was also encapsulated in the 2000 film, Battu , directed by Cheick Oumar Sissoko from Mali. Mour Ndiaye is the Director of the Department of Public Health and Hygiene, with the opportunity of a distinguished and coveted promotion to Vice-President of the Republic. Tourism has declined and the government blames the local beggars in The Capital. Ndiaye must rid the streets of beggars, according to a decree from the Minister. Ndiaye instructs his department to carry out weekly raids. One of the raids leads to the death of lame beggar, Madiabel, who ran into an oncoming vehicle as he tried to escape, leaving two wives and eight children. Soon after, another raid resulted in the death of the old well-loved, comic beggar Papa Gorgui Diop. Enough is enou

FEAST OR FAMINE

Search This Blog