Preacher's Lake

by Lisa Vice

Her first novel, Reckless Driver, evoked comparisons to the works of Eudora Welty. Now Lisa Vice returns with an unforgettably tender and quirky novel celebrating the virtues of love found when—and where—it's least expected

Those lovelorn and weary travelers who find their way to the dead-end road otherwise known as Preacher's Lake, Maine, come expecting to take a break from their hectic, hard-to-make-sense of lives. Escape turns to discovery, then commitment as they find in this tiny coastal town all the meaning and miracles their lives were previously lacking.

The large and lively cast of this comic, poignant novel include a Downeast version of St. Francis (Slim Riley, the immensely tall keeper of the local landfill), a distressed single mom, a burned-out local beauty, a mismatched lesbian couple, and a passionate, though unconventional young minister, among others. As the paths of these delightful characters cross and recross, the residents of Preacher's Lake knit themselves into a real community.

Reminiscent of such recent treasures as Elizabeth McCracken's The Giant's House and Alice Hoffman's Illumination Night, Preacher's Lake is the story of unlikely love triumphing over all.

Genres: Fiction

448 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 1998

Reviews

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Slim, you know how Dorothy gets hit in the head and all?"
"Yeah. That's how come she has that dream."
"What dream, you jughead?"
"Never mind. What're you askin' me?"
"What happened to me? How come I'm like this?" She smacked her forehead. "How come I'm a koo-koo nutcase?"
"Who says that?"
"Everybody says I got no brains."
"I told you, everybody's got a brain."
"The Scarecrow don't."
"He's a scarecrow. He's only in Dorothy's dream."
"What if I'm in somebody's dream? What'll happen when they wake up? Where will I be?" Her lower lip trembled.
"Well Crystal. If you're in a dream, then we're in it together."



~~Moose drink from a pristine Maine lake. I pictured Preacher's Lake looking very similar to this image, the mountains rising up behind it. Imagine being able to walk to the shores of the lake after a hard day's work. Rita, Carol, Slim, Rainey, and Crystal often found comfort there.

First two sentences: Connie Riley drove over the Swift River Bridge, speeding along the steel grids, her tires humming and splashing as she drove into Preacher's Lake, a town scattered along the rocky coast of Sow's Head Bay as haphazardly as the shattered bits of sea urchin shells strewn across the granite by the gulls. Today, the town looked washed out in the pelting rain, a blur of gray and mist rising up into the hills away from the sea.

My two cents: 50-75 pages in I thought that the author's last name is ironic. This is not a bodice ripper/steamy romance novel, but there *is* graphic descriptions of intimacy. So fair warning if that's something you avoid. BUT, after 75 pages or so, Vice hits her stride, and we get into the meat and potatoes of the story arc. She is excellent at writing prose, and her dialogue is spot on. By the end of the book, I could take an educated guess at which character is talking, just based on what they're saying and how they're saying it. That's a rare gift. And then the characters themselves. I fell head over heels for Rita and her young daughter, Rainey. She begins the novel adrift, completely at the mercy of others. But then, when the proverbial shit hits the fan, she realizes she's made of stronger stuff than she thought. And Slim. I could go on and on about Slim. He's hands down my favorite male character so far this year. He didn't have to assume any responsibility whatsoever, but he did so gladly.

He's talking to his step-daughter, Crystal, in the opening quote. Crystal obsessively watches the Wizard of Oz daily. Feeling caught up in a dream (or nightmare) is a common theme in Vice's novel. Finding the courage to love oneself and others seems to be a way out of the dream-state for many of her characters. Watching them work at finding their way to redemption, all in their own ways, makes for some dang good reading. This is, above all, a hopeful novel. I came away believing that Rita, Slim, Carol, and the others might find their way "over the rainbow". Given 4.5 stars or a rating of "Outstanding." Highly recommended.

Further Reading : My favorite section of lyrics from "Over the Rainbow".
Somewhere over the rainbow
Skies are blue
And the dreams that you dare to dream
Really do come true
Someday I'll wish upon a star
And wake up where the clouds are far behind me
Where troubles melt like lemon drops
Away above the chimney tops
That's where you'll find me
Somewhere over the rainbow
Bluebirds fly
Birds fly over the rainbow
Why then, oh, why can't I?

~~And a link to a break takingly beautiful rendition by Eva Cassidy. For Crystal. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rd8V...
Other favorite quotes: "See, that's where we differ. You're still waiting for some Prince Charming type from a book. But I think it's extremely romantic to be in bed with somebody I know."

~~Sometimes Kaye's mood would stay lifted, like a storm blown out to sea. She'd bake cookies, teach Aran to sew, paint their fingernails bright pink. Then he would come home to find her slumped on the sofa again, crushed as a moth whose wings have been handled.

~~Women took trains across the rough country to homestead with men they had never met, arriving to find barren land, surviving the worst storms. Rita wondered how many went crazy from loneliness, how many cracked under the strain of hard work and life with a stranger. A horrible panic filled her, like the razor-sharp claws of an eagle slashing into her back. To distract herself, she pretended she had a thick straw broom to sweep her fears aside the way she had swept the floor that morning, the straw pulling her worries like the crumbs, dirt, and dead flies she had swept into a neat pile.

~~"How d'you know there's a God anyhow?"
"I dunno. I just feel it. It's hard to explain, Rainey. That's just the way it is. It's kind of like how you feel when you get up in the morning and there are spiderwebs all sparkling with dew on the grass and you feel good in your heart. Or when I tuck you in bed after you've just had your bath. That's what God's like to me."

~~How could she possibly help this girl? It was as if her future had already been mapped out long ago. Like the poem said, "Must be the poverty of assembly line futures/hunger Wonder bread can never fill."

~~Maybe it was another sign of getting old. Carol wasn't sure. Perhaps it was just spending so much time alone. But lately, these scenes from her past were more real than the table she sat at now. More real than her elbows on the cool enamel surface, than her feet in the wool slippers on the old wood floor.

~~She cleaned the bowl and rubbed it with oil, wishing there was a recipe she could follow for love, some rules she could apply until what seemed like an impossible mess turned into something beautiful and nourishing, making everyone happy and fulfilled. [...]
If there was one thing she'd learned about making bread, it was that you couldn't hurry it along. Perhaps that was true of love as well, she thought, covering the bowl with a tea towel. She could hear the strains of the old Supremes song, "You Can't Hurry Love." The familiar drumbeat played in her mind, and she began to sing, surprised to discover she knew all the words by heart.

~~Carol had never realized how much children expected adults to know. Crystal came over yesterday demanding that Carol explain how a hurricane was different from a cyclone. Carol's explanation left them both with questions. She might have to invest in an encyclopedia if she stayed.

~~"All I know is you never really get it together, not how you think you will. You just get used to the way you are. You realize you're not going to change all that much so you try to love yourself anyway. Besides, maybe it gets easier if you let someone love you."

~~"God gave us this great capacity to love, but we're so afraid to use it. So we lavish love on idols. Our cars. Our pets. Our homes. But that's OK. We need a lot of practice. Because it's so much harder to love another person. All the fear and risk involved. We don't want to be rejected. We don't want to feel vulnerable or silly. We don't want to get hurt. We think we don't know how, so we don't try. But God wants us to love anyway. That's what God is. The love that loves anyway.

~~"It's unfortunate that we focus on the cross so much as a symbol," Joe said. "Our culture has latched onto it so tightly. But it's there to remind us of the suffering involved. It's not easy to be human. Sometimes I think it'd be better if we focused on the open tomb. The rolling away of that heavy rock. The move on to a higher life."

[Bamboozlepig · Rating 1 out of 5]

This might've been a good read if Vice had limited the number of characters she focused on. As it was, despite the decent writing and prose, it was hard to keep track of all the different characters and how they figured into the overall story. There were also jumps in time that didn't make the plot flow any easier and it was hard to get a handle on when this book was taking place...early 1990s? And the three lesbian stories felt stridently overdone.

[Sue Snowden · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is not so much a book but a way of life. The writing is so evocative that you feel like you’re living in the community. What I like about Lisa Vice’s writing is she gives you just enough info to enable you to decide for yourself what’s going on. There is a very unexpected hero in this tale whose pure simplicity makes the book so beautiful. The theme that runs through this book is acceptance. All of the characters are flawed but co-exist in a cacophonous harmony. Enjoy this beautifully crafted yarn

[Peggy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sigh ... another book that introduces its thousand characters with endless scene changes. I feel like I'm stuck in neutral. Start the story already!!!!