In the Deep Midwinter

Rating:
Summary: Interesing, kind and thoughtful
Review: Although I would not call this book profound, I went away feeling as though Clark was a thoughtful man, interested in getting inside the minds of his charactors and in taking the reader along. I think it was a nobel effort and would recomend it.

Rating:
Summary: Timeless Issues in a Period Piece
Review: I liked the way characters were developed in this story and the way the author dealt with them. I felt he saw and portrayed their frailities, yet wasn't condemning of even the weakest of them while not letting them off either.

If you lived through the fifties, had parents who lived through the fifties, or if you are interested in understanding the fifties, then, I think, this book is for you.

It's a bit staid and somber but not unbearably so. However, i would have liked a little more joy in the book. Surely the characters experienced some.. At least Anna and her mother. Even Richard must have known some quiet joy. Next time, I hope Robert Clark will put some spring and summer into his novel!

Rating:
Summary: For people who love Cheever and E. Connell's Mr./Mrs. Bridge
Review: I read about this author's new book Mr. White's Confession in Esquire, where Greil Marcus raved about it and about In the Deep Midwinter. So I went back and found this one in paperback. If you like John Cheever's books, or especially the novels about Mr. and Mrs. Bridge by Evan Connell (does anyone remember those?), this book is for you. It's set in the 1940s, but it doesn't feel stuffy or old--I disagree with a couple of the previous reviewers on that score. Clark uses the past to frame a story that has contemporary meaning. Two big things in this book--an abortion that one of the characters decides to have, and the crisis of religious faith in another--are treated dramatically and deeply. Because the book is set 50 years ago, those events have an enormity that today's novels might treat with irony, and so dismiss. I highly recommend this novel for patient readers.

Rating:
Summary: Timeless Issues in a Period Piece
Review: In the Deep Midwinter certainly evokes the 50s -- the drinks before dinner, the roast beef and creamed corn, the wife waiting at home for the husband, the moral and legal prohibitions. But the issues it addresses are timeless: is silence the better part of love? is it wisdom or hypocrisy to look the other way? The prose is stunning and poetic. The characters are well-drawn. Charles' pointless evening snowed in at home and afraid of his own shadow while Anna is across town growing sicker could not have been more disturbing and revealing. I immediately picked up Mr. White's Confession by the same author and found it an entirely different book but equally as moving. Highly recommend them both.

Rating:
Summary: A finely nuanced and well crafted novel set in the 1950s.
Review: This is a beautifully written book. I marveled over the wonderful language, subtle and full of wisdom. The author merges themes of love, betrayal and moral standpoints in the crisis of an illegal abortion. It does not remain in the 50s morality but transcends to universal themes with which we debate today.