In The Fall

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Summary: What is as flat as paper?
Review: What is as flat as paper? The characters in Jeffrey Lent's "In the Fall".I ordered this book with the expectation of deep, vibrant characters and a vivid storyteller. What I found were characters so detached and vacant that a bath in super glue couldn't pull them together. Boring and disappointing.I felt nothing at all for these characters and was elated when the last page was turned.

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Summary: Powerful Multigenerational saga
Review: First novels just don't get much better than this. Powerful themes, compelling characters, and a great style. It amazes me that anyone gave negative reviews to this book. It is truly a gripping work. Buy it and savor it. You'll rarely come across a book this good.

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Summary: A moving story with memorable characters.
Review: After purchasing "In the Fall" a few days ago, I settled down to read it and have found it almost impossible to think of anything else. Mr. Lent provides us with a three-generation epic that truly has only a handful of characters---but what wonderful characters. The plot is powered by a gripping mystery and enfolded by great love stories. Although Norman and Leah, Prudence and Abigail, Jamie and Joey, and Foster are only characters in a novel, they are as real and as believeable as members of my own family. If anyone believes this is only a Northern version of "Cold Mountain," they are greatly mistaken.

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Summary: Great in its own right
Review: I suppose the comparison with "Cold Mountain" is inevitable, given that book's critical and commercial success -- even Tony Earley made it in the New York Times' Book Review -- but it's also unfortunate. Both books start at the end of the Civil War, but that superficial connection really doesn't tell "Cold Mountain" lovers anything about "In the Fall." Lent's themes, beside encompassing many decades beyond Appomattox, are far darker and more profound and the writing is compellingly daring as Lent performs a prose high-wire act with his metaphors and narrative surprises. (Nor is he as obsessed with showing off his command of 19th century detail as Professor Frazier) Take "In the Fall" on its own terms and you will be dazzled and moved.

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Summary: Somewhat Disappointed
Review: Having read Publisher's Weekly's starred review and others in this forum, I was prepared for a great feast of a novel. Mr. Lent's talent is not at question but I found the novel hard to read due to its sentence structure and style.There were parts in the book that truly grabbed me but more often than not, I caught myself skimming and drifting. My main objection is his writing style and length of the book...too long with unnecessary verbage.

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Summary: Original, fresh, and glorious!
Review: Don't tell me it's great, tell me WHY it's great. So instructed my English teacher many moons ago, but telling ANYTHING about this story might spoil something for the reader. There are a dozen little surprises in the first 25 pages, and I'd hate for you to lose the impact of any of them. This book is a little "Cold Mountain" as others have noted, but it's also a little Garp and Prince of Tides and any of the other five or six most magical novels of the past three decades. Mostly though it is itself, split infinitives and sentence fragments and all, leaving you with the knowledge that you've been in the presence of one of the greatest storytelllers to ever come along. What a book, and what a story!

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Summary: It's no Cold Mountain
Review: I bought this book because the review in Newsweek, called it the next Cold Mountain. I am sorely disappointed in this book. I hate his style of writing. One sentence will be a paragraph long, and the next three are sentence fragments. He didn't make me care about any of the characters. .........................

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Summary: I wish I could love it
Review: This is the third big novel to adopt Cormac McCarthy's style. At times, "In The Fall" slips over into parody. I'm only about 100 pages into it, and at times the writing is so good it's almost painful. But now it's like a soap opera and I've lost my ability to care for the characters. It doesn't have the story structure of "Cold Mountain," which alternated Ada trying to survive on the farm while Inman struggled to get back to her, both powerful narrative hooks. I haven't read "Plainsong" yet, but I hope it will be better. I doubt if any of them are as good as "All the Pretty Horses" or "Blood Meridian," which is my favorite novel still.

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Summary: Awesome First Novel
Review: Jim Harrison says of IN THE FALL, "I cannot recommend it highly enough." That caught my attention. I consider DALVA and THE ROAD HOME two of the finest novels of their kind I have ever read. I started IN THE FALL with high expectations. The reviews I read were all glowing in their praise of the book. I was not disappointed. In fact I was pleasantly surprised. In an era when books seem to be written in a hurry to get them to the publisher, this novel takes its time expressing itself. I wasn't surprised to read that Lent writes in his barn. His unhurried pace and meticulous plotting are a joy to read. I found myself fully involved in the reality he created, the highest praise I can offer a writer. I cannot imagine reading another novel this year that moves me the way this one did. In fact I'm having a hard time getting started on other books. Do yourself a favor and buy this novel. Read it slowly, if you can.

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Summary: The Longest Read
Review: I found this book terribly tedious to read. Every action and statement of every character is dissected, discussed and analyzed ad nauseam. Sometimes a person wears a plaid shirt because it's the only clean one in the closet. I was looking forward to reading this book because the subject sounded fascinating, but I was very disappointed.