What do you think?
Rate this book
Plus grands que le monde
Premier roman envoûtant, une exploration de la famille comme lieu d'apprentissage vers la rédemption.
Lorsque Doris et Tup se rencontrent dans les années 1930, l'avenir ensemble leur apparaît comme une évidence. À tout juste dix-huit ans, Doris rejoint Tup dans la ferme laitière familiale du Maine. Là-bas, leurs journées suivent les rythmes de la terre, faites de joies simples, et bientôt animées par trois enfants : Sonny, l'aîné, qui fait de sa chambre un musée consacré aux insectes de la région ; Dodie, la cadette au cœur affirmé et généreux ; et le petit Beston, calme et dévoué. Un foyer qui semble être à l'abri des vicissitudes du monde. Jusqu'au jour où survient une tragédie terrible, qui ébranle les fondations familiales.
Ce premier roman envoûtant explore les chemins de reconstruction d'une famille endeuillée. Dans ce récit qui se déploie sur presque vingt ans, Meredith Hall rend compte d'un quotidien fait de tourments personnels, mais aussi d'acceptation et d'espoir. Car, en dépit de tout,Plus grands que le mondeest une histoire lumineuse, au style élégant, qui jette sur l'amour – filial, parental, fraternel – une lueur neuve.
Kindle Edition
First published October 20, 2020
405 people are currently reading
2317 people want to read
About the author
Meredith Hall
13 books105 followersMeredith Hall’s awards include a two-year literary grant from A Room of Her Own Foundation, a Pushcart Prize and Maine’s Book of the Year award. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Kenyon Review, Good Housekeeping, Five Points and many other journals and anthologies. Her debut novel, Beneficence, was published by David. R. Godine Publishing in 2020. Hall is Professor Emerita in the MFA writing program at the University of New Hampshire, and divides her time between Maine and California.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 319 reviews
January 26, 2021
"Beneficence" is a novel that begins in the post-World War II era and continues into the '60s. It's about a farm family -- mom, dad, three kids -- in Maine. It comes in three phases. In the beginning, we see a hard-working family with few luxuries but a good life. Then, phase two, a terrible thing happens. And phase three, the family tries to cope with the aftermath.
The author does not describe the terrible thing; wisely, I think. She goes straight from the before to the after, and we're never told exactly what happened but given the general idea as the characters take turns telling their stories. I think this works really well.
I liked the "before" part of the story. It's fiction, but Meredith Hall's make-believe family represents many, many real farm families across rural American in the 1940s and '50s and even into the '60s. I couldn't help thinking, as I read this part of the novel, that this family worked so much harder than most of us work today, and they had so much less. Yet they were happy, enjoying the work, enjoying their lives -- in a way that most people aren't today. Yes, again, this is a work of fiction, but I think Hall captured something true.
But you know while reading this part that a terrible thing is coming. You know because you read the inside front cover, and because you know that there would be no point to this story unless something terrible happened. It couldn't just go on being idyllic.
Ah, but the after. It just didn't work for me. We spend all of our time in the thoughts of the characters, and their thoughts soon grow old. I know this is terribly insensitive of me, but I just wanted to yell at them: Get over it! I hope I would not be so insensitive to a real-life person in such a situation, but there it was. And to me, they all sounded the same. They seem to use the expression "I know that" a lot, and they use the word "good" a lot. As in: "I am a good father. I know that."
I wanted to like this book more than I did. For one thing, writing a book and getting it published is incredibly hard work. It's a great accomplishment, worthy of more than some dweeb who has never even written a chapter giving it a mere 2 stars. For another, reviewers with legitimate creds did like this book a lot. I recognize the lyrical quality of the writing. I recognize the decency of this book, a rare quality in contemporary fiction. It doesn't go for the easy sell, for violence, for sex, for scandal. There is scandal in the book, but it is understated.
Sadly, though, I was glad to be finished with it. It was a short novel that, to me, felt long.
The author does not describe the terrible thing; wisely, I think. She goes straight from the before to the after, and we're never told exactly what happened but given the general idea as the characters take turns telling their stories. I think this works really well.
I liked the "before" part of the story. It's fiction, but Meredith Hall's make-believe family represents many, many real farm families across rural American in the 1940s and '50s and even into the '60s. I couldn't help thinking, as I read this part of the novel, that this family worked so much harder than most of us work today, and they had so much less. Yet they were happy, enjoying the work, enjoying their lives -- in a way that most people aren't today. Yes, again, this is a work of fiction, but I think Hall captured something true.
But you know while reading this part that a terrible thing is coming. You know because you read the inside front cover, and because you know that there would be no point to this story unless something terrible happened. It couldn't just go on being idyllic.
Ah, but the after. It just didn't work for me. We spend all of our time in the thoughts of the characters, and their thoughts soon grow old. I know this is terribly insensitive of me, but I just wanted to yell at them: Get over it! I hope I would not be so insensitive to a real-life person in such a situation, but there it was. And to me, they all sounded the same. They seem to use the expression "I know that" a lot, and they use the word "good" a lot. As in: "I am a good father. I know that."
I wanted to like this book more than I did. For one thing, writing a book and getting it published is incredibly hard work. It's a great accomplishment, worthy of more than some dweeb who has never even written a chapter giving it a mere 2 stars. For another, reviewers with legitimate creds did like this book a lot. I recognize the lyrical quality of the writing. I recognize the decency of this book, a rare quality in contemporary fiction. It doesn't go for the easy sell, for violence, for sex, for scandal. There is scandal in the book, but it is understated.
Sadly, though, I was glad to be finished with it. It was a short novel that, to me, felt long.
July 21, 2022
This is a complete novel, perfect in every way. I'm not eager to read it again because it is so raw and tender, but I enjoyed every minute of it. It is simple, nuanced, and poetic. As grandiose as it may sound, I think it encapsulates life, the passage of time, and the uncertainty of what is in store for us. There is a lot to consider here and I'm not sure that I was able to recognize its full brilliance.
Be warned that there is quite a bit of animal violence -- I understand why and I don't think Hall is gratuitous with it at all, but just something to keep in mind.
Be warned that there is quite a bit of animal violence -- I understand why and I don't think Hall is gratuitous with it at all, but just something to keep in mind.
October 15, 2020
Deep-rooted grief comforted by a place of simple beauty (Maine, 1947 – 1965): How would you define a literary masterpiece? Would you think it over-the-top to characterize an author’s first novel as a masterpiece? These questions are asked because Beneficence moves us with so much pathos and so much grace and beauty, and it’s Meredith Hall’s debut novel.
Years from now, Beneficence is one of those novels that sticks with you. Not in the details, but in the rendering of a once-upon-a-time, happy family of five, the Senters, who suffered for at least ten, fourteen years, from profound grief, which stays inside them forever.
In 1988, Princeton University convened a forum to consider the literary questions posed. What’s reported doesn’t provide conclusive answers, art is so subjective anyway, but a couple of things stand out: “it would be a shame not to read” the book, if it “lays claim to universality and is therefore a lesson in humanity.” By this standard alone, Beneficence is a literary feat.
Elsewhere, googling, you’ll find references about the power of the prose to affect us emotionally, including triggering feelings about beauty. This too, fits Hall’s first novel.
Along the internet way, I discovered a word that describes someone who loves beauty: philocalist. Some Senters, and the author based on her memoir discussed below, sense beauty as something sacred and blessed. “We are blessed with the gift of loving this beauty” is a remarkable spirit in a novel about a family coming apart, from a tragic accident. We may attribute this outlook to something spiritual, mystical, but the novel attributes it to a “willingness to believe in some sort of goodness.”
A strong sense of place — a “handsome” yet “simple” dairy-farm in Maine, and the northern land it encompasses — offers beneficence.
Hall’s debut novel was so compelling, I felt compelled to read her memoir written in 2008, Without A Map, which is as gorgeously written and profoundly moving. Beneficence shines all by itself, but packaged with her memoir it provides insight into the depth of her personal losses that enables her fictional artistry.
Like Beneficence, Hall’s memoir is stunning in the intensity and longevity of unbearable grief, guilt, shame, loneliness, abandonment, and yearning for forgiveness. Hall’s “hunger for love” led to becoming pregnant at sixteen, then mercilessly was thrown out of her childhood home and her divorced father’s home, by parents she loved. “Shunned,” homeless, and destitute, somehow she never lost her deep appreciation of life and nature’s beauty. She’s injected this gift into her fictional family.
Hall’s real life trauma is entwined into her fictional trauma, even in the novel’s setting. We’re told Beneficence takes place in Alstead, Maine, but the town doesn’t seem to exist; Alstead, New Hampshire does. New Hampshire is where Hall’s universe collapsed, and now the Senters fall apart in the same town.
Forced to abandon her newborn, whom Hall wasn’t even permitted to see, she descended into an “encompassing sorrow” that devolved into her “private and interior devastation.” This is precisely what happens to the Senters, most dysfunctionally to Doris, the loving mother of three children who loses one, emotionally abandoning her family for years. “The grief I carry every single day has burrowed deep,” Hall wrote in her memoir, the same devastation Doris feels; Tup, her husband, too but differently. Of course, the children are also impacted.
In Without A Map, Hall still wants to “absorb all the wisdom and beauty of the human soul,” which is extraordinary after what she went through. Again, she wants all the sadness of Beneficence to be infused with this quality of sensitivity.
Motherhood is far-reaching, all-inclusive, as seen through the voices of three of the four remaining family members: Doris, Tup, and their only daughter, Dodie, whose forced to mother the son who survived; assume the domestic duties; and take on a greater share of the farmwork at roughly the same age the author was thrown into adulthood.
Since neither sons’ voice tells their perspective, the reader won’t find out whether it’s Sonny, the eldest, or Beston/Best, the youngest, who is the buried child until the end of Part One, Before.
The Maine farm, passed down from five generations, brings joy despite the story being told after the Depression and the end of WWII. Joy is for the simple yet meaningful and beautiful things in life, which readers are mourning and thinking about during these historically traumatic times. For all the blessedness that runs through the Before chapters, Doris’ words on page one are foreboding, saying, “I was the one who was supposed to keep an eye on the children.”
Doris has a desperate need for forgiveness. But she’s not the only one seeking forgiveness, because no one is actually sure what happened in fleeting moments that consume lives. Doris’ withdrawal results in Dodie’s heroic and painful persistence, emphasizing that Dodie has lost her youth like Hall did.
A major difference between fact and fiction is that the Senters are tethered to and committed to one physical place, whereas Hall spent years wandering the globe. The farmhouse has a comforting, “lived-in” feeling, while Hall had no place to even shelter in. The theme of Home looms large and essential. The farm is thriving from plenty of hard, “good work,” but no matter how hard Hall’s life descends, or the goodness in her heart, she has to sell the clothes on her back to eat, barely. Tup’s love for his distraught wife regardless of his sacrifices over the years, echoes some of the helplessness Hall endured.
Cycling through the seasons on the farm serves as a “rescue of order” against all that’s “aching sweet and unbearable.” The Maine farm is this family’s map, the map Meredith Hall spent years without.
We’re relieved Hall’s life finally turned around. At age forty-four, she graduated college; found her own family to love; taught creative writing at the University of New Hampshire. After all the years of pain and suffering, can the Senters move on?
Seeking the answer to that question keeps you turning pages, but make no mistake it’s the simple eloquence of the prose that compels you on, reflecting how I felt compelled to read Without A Map after inhaling Beneficence.
Once Hall was without a map, there was only a Before and After. Fictionally, she stretches out the rawness and endurance of grief, adding more Parts: During, After, and Here. Throughout the sorrow, Hall’s characters are washed over by “a quiet sort of peace.” She’s created people who believe “there is nothing more elegant than the head of a white-tail deer.” Who, when they allow themselves to take a break, go ice skating and can still enjoy “the feeling of ice carved by our skates with a rasping swoosh . . . skimming smoothly and effortlessly into the light.”
The comfort of light is expressed repeatedly — the “the soft light of home,” the “dawn light in the kitchen calling us to the next day,” the “low morning light.” Characters who are, or were, able to be in the moment.
Wisdom comes in accepting that “we ride this planet with all its sorrow and all its love and all its beauty and all its hard mysteries.” That “the great price of love and attachment is loss.” And to keep reminding ourselves “every day is a gift.”
Lorraine (EnchantedProse.com)
Years from now, Beneficence is one of those novels that sticks with you. Not in the details, but in the rendering of a once-upon-a-time, happy family of five, the Senters, who suffered for at least ten, fourteen years, from profound grief, which stays inside them forever.
In 1988, Princeton University convened a forum to consider the literary questions posed. What’s reported doesn’t provide conclusive answers, art is so subjective anyway, but a couple of things stand out: “it would be a shame not to read” the book, if it “lays claim to universality and is therefore a lesson in humanity.” By this standard alone, Beneficence is a literary feat.
Elsewhere, googling, you’ll find references about the power of the prose to affect us emotionally, including triggering feelings about beauty. This too, fits Hall’s first novel.
Along the internet way, I discovered a word that describes someone who loves beauty: philocalist. Some Senters, and the author based on her memoir discussed below, sense beauty as something sacred and blessed. “We are blessed with the gift of loving this beauty” is a remarkable spirit in a novel about a family coming apart, from a tragic accident. We may attribute this outlook to something spiritual, mystical, but the novel attributes it to a “willingness to believe in some sort of goodness.”
A strong sense of place — a “handsome” yet “simple” dairy-farm in Maine, and the northern land it encompasses — offers beneficence.
Hall’s debut novel was so compelling, I felt compelled to read her memoir written in 2008, Without A Map, which is as gorgeously written and profoundly moving. Beneficence shines all by itself, but packaged with her memoir it provides insight into the depth of her personal losses that enables her fictional artistry.
Like Beneficence, Hall’s memoir is stunning in the intensity and longevity of unbearable grief, guilt, shame, loneliness, abandonment, and yearning for forgiveness. Hall’s “hunger for love” led to becoming pregnant at sixteen, then mercilessly was thrown out of her childhood home and her divorced father’s home, by parents she loved. “Shunned,” homeless, and destitute, somehow she never lost her deep appreciation of life and nature’s beauty. She’s injected this gift into her fictional family.
Hall’s real life trauma is entwined into her fictional trauma, even in the novel’s setting. We’re told Beneficence takes place in Alstead, Maine, but the town doesn’t seem to exist; Alstead, New Hampshire does. New Hampshire is where Hall’s universe collapsed, and now the Senters fall apart in the same town.
Forced to abandon her newborn, whom Hall wasn’t even permitted to see, she descended into an “encompassing sorrow” that devolved into her “private and interior devastation.” This is precisely what happens to the Senters, most dysfunctionally to Doris, the loving mother of three children who loses one, emotionally abandoning her family for years. “The grief I carry every single day has burrowed deep,” Hall wrote in her memoir, the same devastation Doris feels; Tup, her husband, too but differently. Of course, the children are also impacted.
In Without A Map, Hall still wants to “absorb all the wisdom and beauty of the human soul,” which is extraordinary after what she went through. Again, she wants all the sadness of Beneficence to be infused with this quality of sensitivity.
Motherhood is far-reaching, all-inclusive, as seen through the voices of three of the four remaining family members: Doris, Tup, and their only daughter, Dodie, whose forced to mother the son who survived; assume the domestic duties; and take on a greater share of the farmwork at roughly the same age the author was thrown into adulthood.
Since neither sons’ voice tells their perspective, the reader won’t find out whether it’s Sonny, the eldest, or Beston/Best, the youngest, who is the buried child until the end of Part One, Before.
The Maine farm, passed down from five generations, brings joy despite the story being told after the Depression and the end of WWII. Joy is for the simple yet meaningful and beautiful things in life, which readers are mourning and thinking about during these historically traumatic times. For all the blessedness that runs through the Before chapters, Doris’ words on page one are foreboding, saying, “I was the one who was supposed to keep an eye on the children.”
Doris has a desperate need for forgiveness. But she’s not the only one seeking forgiveness, because no one is actually sure what happened in fleeting moments that consume lives. Doris’ withdrawal results in Dodie’s heroic and painful persistence, emphasizing that Dodie has lost her youth like Hall did.
A major difference between fact and fiction is that the Senters are tethered to and committed to one physical place, whereas Hall spent years wandering the globe. The farmhouse has a comforting, “lived-in” feeling, while Hall had no place to even shelter in. The theme of Home looms large and essential. The farm is thriving from plenty of hard, “good work,” but no matter how hard Hall’s life descends, or the goodness in her heart, she has to sell the clothes on her back to eat, barely. Tup’s love for his distraught wife regardless of his sacrifices over the years, echoes some of the helplessness Hall endured.
Cycling through the seasons on the farm serves as a “rescue of order” against all that’s “aching sweet and unbearable.” The Maine farm is this family’s map, the map Meredith Hall spent years without.
We’re relieved Hall’s life finally turned around. At age forty-four, she graduated college; found her own family to love; taught creative writing at the University of New Hampshire. After all the years of pain and suffering, can the Senters move on?
Seeking the answer to that question keeps you turning pages, but make no mistake it’s the simple eloquence of the prose that compels you on, reflecting how I felt compelled to read Without A Map after inhaling Beneficence.
Once Hall was without a map, there was only a Before and After. Fictionally, she stretches out the rawness and endurance of grief, adding more Parts: During, After, and Here. Throughout the sorrow, Hall’s characters are washed over by “a quiet sort of peace.” She’s created people who believe “there is nothing more elegant than the head of a white-tail deer.” Who, when they allow themselves to take a break, go ice skating and can still enjoy “the feeling of ice carved by our skates with a rasping swoosh . . . skimming smoothly and effortlessly into the light.”
The comfort of light is expressed repeatedly — the “the soft light of home,” the “dawn light in the kitchen calling us to the next day,” the “low morning light.” Characters who are, or were, able to be in the moment.
Wisdom comes in accepting that “we ride this planet with all its sorrow and all its love and all its beauty and all its hard mysteries.” That “the great price of love and attachment is loss.” And to keep reminding ourselves “every day is a gift.”
Lorraine (EnchantedProse.com)
January 25, 2022
It’s not a word that’s often used, but it’s familiar in its own way. Beneficence. The one word title struck me. It was a book selected by my late wife. I knew nothing about it. I read the book jacket. Tragedy. Guilt and blame. Boundless grief. What in the world did beneficence have to do with this? Why would anyone want to read it? Especially me? Smart people do stupid things all the time. But just as often, things aren’t entirely as they seem. ‘Beneficence,’ the book, is a novel about where you start and where you end. It’s everything in the midst of chaos that can tragically throw you off course. The goal shouldn’t be to get through. Star Trek fans know “Survival is insufficient.” You’ve got to find, or return to beneficence.
Most readers won’t discover this book. And if they did, most wouldn’t have the patience for it. It’s about a farm family in 1950’s Maine. It was a time of beneficence. It was a time of basic American values. And chief amongst those values was goodness. And if you go to the actual trouble of looking beneficence up in the dictionary, like I did, that’s what it means. It’s a word so important to our National identity, we’ve buried it and forgotten it. But the idea is still there.
The basic component of American goodness is its land. And it’s the farm that decades ago was at the top of the hierarchy. The author of ‘Beneficence,’ Meredith Hall, must have grown up on one. It’s not a construct for her. It’s a way of life she’s familiar with. You can feel the passion and connectivity. Tup and Doris Senter inherit his Father’s abandoned dairy farm as newly weds. They piece it back together and start a family. Two sons and a daughter in the middle. It’s the daughter, Dorie, who provides the glue for the family and the farm. The story is told in three alternate, first person voices. The two sons are essential to the storyline, but neither gets a point of view. As the family grows, beneficence dominates, though we all know it won’t last. It never does. It’s a pathway that’s not marked for the long haul. One of the siblings dies and how each family member grieves changes everything. The grief is neither logical or illogical. It’s internalized by each narrator. They blame themselves. They each go astray. It’s only the farm that sustains them. The beneficence of the farm eventually brings them back to themselves.
Meredith Hall’s book isn’t plot driven. It’s a cerebral, character driven novel. The writing alone invites you in. As she leads the reader chronologically a long, the thought process of each narrator subtly changes. Grief can do that. Blame can do that. We can all do things that are out of character. It should never be a surprise. The revelation should be that we each have the capacity to recalibrate. We each have the ability to return to beneficence. We just have to choose to go there.
Most readers won’t discover this book. And if they did, most wouldn’t have the patience for it. It’s about a farm family in 1950’s Maine. It was a time of beneficence. It was a time of basic American values. And chief amongst those values was goodness. And if you go to the actual trouble of looking beneficence up in the dictionary, like I did, that’s what it means. It’s a word so important to our National identity, we’ve buried it and forgotten it. But the idea is still there.
The basic component of American goodness is its land. And it’s the farm that decades ago was at the top of the hierarchy. The author of ‘Beneficence,’ Meredith Hall, must have grown up on one. It’s not a construct for her. It’s a way of life she’s familiar with. You can feel the passion and connectivity. Tup and Doris Senter inherit his Father’s abandoned dairy farm as newly weds. They piece it back together and start a family. Two sons and a daughter in the middle. It’s the daughter, Dorie, who provides the glue for the family and the farm. The story is told in three alternate, first person voices. The two sons are essential to the storyline, but neither gets a point of view. As the family grows, beneficence dominates, though we all know it won’t last. It never does. It’s a pathway that’s not marked for the long haul. One of the siblings dies and how each family member grieves changes everything. The grief is neither logical or illogical. It’s internalized by each narrator. They blame themselves. They each go astray. It’s only the farm that sustains them. The beneficence of the farm eventually brings them back to themselves.
Meredith Hall’s book isn’t plot driven. It’s a cerebral, character driven novel. The writing alone invites you in. As she leads the reader chronologically a long, the thought process of each narrator subtly changes. Grief can do that. Blame can do that. We can all do things that are out of character. It should never be a surprise. The revelation should be that we each have the capacity to recalibrate. We each have the ability to return to beneficence. We just have to choose to go there.
June 18, 2023
Wow. Beautiful. Heart-wrenching. Sad. Lovely.
The beauty of the human spirit triumphing over unendurable loss.
The scenes of farm life in Maine are simply transporting.
Two characters make choices that, to me, are unforgivable. But this family endures.
Prepare to be moved. Sad. Devastated. Glad. It's a long road to the happy ending for the Senters.
The beauty of the human spirit triumphing over unendurable loss.
The scenes of farm life in Maine are simply transporting.
Two characters make choices that, to me, are unforgivable. But this family endures.
Prepare to be moved. Sad. Devastated. Glad. It's a long road to the happy ending for the Senters.
January 27, 2021
if i could give this book 10 stars i would. it moved me in a way no book in quite some time has. the writing while prose is poetic. i lived with the characters and in the setting for the entire time i was reading it. when i closed the book at dawn this morning, i sat still as a stone for some time, just absorbing the story i had just finished. i will be thinking about it for some time. this is a stunning novel.
December 22, 2020
One of the most beautifully written books I've ever read. I don't know how this remarkable book on grief and forgiveness didn't get more attention this year. Easily one of the very best.
December 17, 2025
un récit dont j'attendais beaucoup, que ça gratte et pique et abîme et chamboule, et que j'ai trouvé d'une grande platitude, dans le sens où il se satisfait de décrire les choses sans élévation, sans réel recul littéraire, en espérant que ça suffira à nous faire nous attacher à cette famille. cela fonctionne d'autant moins que l'espèce de propos bizarre à base de "l'amour de la famille est une force suprême" (pour ne pas dire sacrée, ce que le livre appuie énormément et juste non en fait non ce n'est pas sacré la famille c'est road to hell ce genre de façon de penser) et "si on s'aime assez alors on se pardonne tout hihihi même ton mari qui te trompe tu pardonnes car la famille avant tout hihihi" et "avoir un petit-enfant dans la famille bam ça soigne et répare tout ! c'est magique !" ben non trou d'évier ça marche pas comme ça la vie. des petits relents chrétiens vaguement autoritaires là oh là là mais qu'est-ce qu'il y a d'aimable dans ce livre sincèrement ? tous les procédés tire-larmes autour du deuil, cette lenteur, cette explicitation des moiiiindres mécanismes ou élans émotionnels chez les personnages, cette profusion de détails qui anesthésie et met au même niveau les violences éducatives et les conserves de tomates... sans moi !!!
Read
April 30, 2021A friend gave this novel her highest praise. A solemn, thoughtful book about the nature of love, marriage, family, and perspective.
February 16, 2024
Quel beau livre.
November 19, 2022
This novel of love and grief was a difficult one for me to process. On the one hand, it's beautifully written and well-constructed. However, for such a deeply intimate story, it sometimes left me cold. In the end, I think I'd have to say that I appreciated this book very much even though I couldn't always like it.
Ms. Hall's novel focuses on the Senters, a farming family in rural Maine. The book opens in 1947, as Doris and Tup Senter are raising their three children. They are not well-off, but they have enough to get by, and it's obvious that their family is deeply loved. The book is constructed in three parts, "Before", "During" and "After". There's also an epilogue of sorts.
After getting the know the Senters in the first part, the second part takes us abruptly into tragedy. The family of five is now a family of four, and we see how the loss and grief affect the family deeply. The spare, austere writing style fits the story perfectly as the author follows the family over fifteen years. The book jumps between different character's perspectives, showing how the great family loss has altered them all.
One thing I loved about this book is how the beneficence of the title is manifested throughout the story. The tale Ms. Halls tells is a deeply painful one, but throughout the book, she shows how the characters begin to rediscover their capacity to show charity, kindness and love. This quality is also reflected in how the author tells her story. There are so many points in this book where one could easily judge one or another of the characters. However, the multiple perspectives and the manner in which actions and characters are portrayed invite the reader to have empathy instead.
Beneficence is sometimes a very painful read, so while I can admire the artistry, I'm not sure I could curl up with this book again anytime soon. It's a very good examination of the far-reaching effects of deep grief, though.
CW: human death, animal death and injury, depression, grief, abandonment
Ms. Hall's novel focuses on the Senters, a farming family in rural Maine. The book opens in 1947, as Doris and Tup Senter are raising their three children. They are not well-off, but they have enough to get by, and it's obvious that their family is deeply loved. The book is constructed in three parts, "Before", "During" and "After". There's also an epilogue of sorts.
After getting the know the Senters in the first part, the second part takes us abruptly into tragedy. The family of five is now a family of four, and we see how the loss and grief affect the family deeply. The spare, austere writing style fits the story perfectly as the author follows the family over fifteen years. The book jumps between different character's perspectives, showing how the great family loss has altered them all.
One thing I loved about this book is how the beneficence of the title is manifested throughout the story. The tale Ms. Halls tells is a deeply painful one, but throughout the book, she shows how the characters begin to rediscover their capacity to show charity, kindness and love. This quality is also reflected in how the author tells her story. There are so many points in this book where one could easily judge one or another of the characters. However, the multiple perspectives and the manner in which actions and characters are portrayed invite the reader to have empathy instead.
Beneficence is sometimes a very painful read, so while I can admire the artistry, I'm not sure I could curl up with this book again anytime soon. It's a very good examination of the far-reaching effects of deep grief, though.
CW: human death, animal death and injury, depression, grief, abandonment
January 11, 2024
Eloquently written story about a Maine farm family in the 1950s who experience a divisive, tragic event and their arduous efforts to get back to their previously good and happy life. Tup and Doris run the family farm and have three children; the narration swings between the two of them and their daughter, Dodie. Each individual blames themselves for the incident, and each navigates a very different pathway to recovery. Tup struggles to think of himself as a 'good man'. Doris cannot seem to connect with the world anymore and drifts through, mired in the past. Dodie's determination to experience a good life again, 'beneficence', is heroic. Essentially, a prototype of how different perspective colors our memories of the past, our hopes for the future, and our ability to fully engage in the present.
It's a rarity to come across an author who writes so poignantly and whose words become so translatable into the reader's daily life. I'm grateful to have never gone through an ordeal like the Senter family's, yet I find Meredith Hall's observances and descriptions to be fully applicable to my own setbacks and struggles. I would liken her style to Amor Towles, another fabulous author who encapsulates his characters' thoughts and feelings in a universal way. As Ms Hall writes, "We will ourselves to live this day grateful and unguarded. We decide. We make ourselves ready to participate in beneficence and goodness. There is no peace outside that."
It's a rarity to come across an author who writes so poignantly and whose words become so translatable into the reader's daily life. I'm grateful to have never gone through an ordeal like the Senter family's, yet I find Meredith Hall's observances and descriptions to be fully applicable to my own setbacks and struggles. I would liken her style to Amor Towles, another fabulous author who encapsulates his characters' thoughts and feelings in a universal way. As Ms Hall writes, "We will ourselves to live this day grateful and unguarded. We decide. We make ourselves ready to participate in beneficence and goodness. There is no peace outside that."
September 13, 2020
The Senter’s dairy farm in Maine has been in the family for generations. The story begins in the 1940’s with Tup and Doris Senter and their three children, Sonny, Dodie and Beston. The reader gets a rich and detailed view of what living and working on a dairy farm is like and while the majority of life involves work, the Senters enjoy the lifestyle until a tragedy occurs one winter and we watch the family slowly unravel. This is a story of deep grief and it is Tup, Doris and Dodie that drive the narrative.
Even though the book is dealing with the heavy subject of grief, I very much enjoyed the story. This author’s writing has been compared to Kent Haruf and I agree that it is very much reminiscent of it.
For anyone that enjoys reading fiction about grief, I would definitely recommend this book.
Thank you to Edelweiss and the publisher, David R. Godine for an advanced reader’s copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Even though the book is dealing with the heavy subject of grief, I very much enjoyed the story. This author’s writing has been compared to Kent Haruf and I agree that it is very much reminiscent of it.
For anyone that enjoys reading fiction about grief, I would definitely recommend this book.
Thank you to Edelweiss and the publisher, David R. Godine for an advanced reader’s copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
February 6, 2022
Beautiful descriptions of rural Maine and an unflinching look at grief and its ever-changing course.
August 30, 2025
Esta no es una novela que responda a una necesidad de mercado. Es decir, que no me parece nada comercial por los temas que trata, por cómo los trata y por cómo está escrita y concebida.
Es una historia sencilla, sencillísima. De un matrimonio con tres hijos en la década de los 40 en Estados Unidos, que viven y gestionan una granja (gracias a lo cual él no es alistado para la guerra). Tiene una vida plácida y feliz, hasta que algo terrible ocurre, y todo se desmorona desde dentro.
Aunque es una historia sobre la pérdida, por supuesto, yo diría que el núcleo de la narración es la culpa. Qué profunda, oscura y corrosiva es la culpa, cuando somos incapaces de asumir algo que hemos hecho o dejado de hacer, cuando acusamos al otro de algo, en voz alta o en silencio. Porque continuar viviendo con la culpa anidada en el corazón es durísimo, y eso es lo que les pasa a los personajes de la historia. Que se quedan vacíos por dentro. Que se quedan anclados en un instante, mientras que en el exterior el tiempo pasa.
Me ha gustado el estilo simple pero rico de la autora, del que he disfrutado gracias a una buena traducción. Me han desconcertado algunas decisiones de puntuación de diálogos, pero por lo demás la edición me ha parecido buena. Supongo que, desde cierto punto de vista, la novela puede ser objeto de crítica por idealizar un estilo de vida que hoy en día se considera obsoleto o anticuado. A mí me parece un poco ridículo tachar de malo algo solo porque hoy en día los personajes no actuarían así o no tendrían esa mentalidad (por ejemplo, la concepción del matrimonio). Benevolencia es una novela que habla del campo, del matrimonio, de la paternidad, de la familia, en resumen, y también de la incomunicación, la pérdida, la culpa, el abandono y el perdón. Sin estridencias, pero ahí está. En un mundo en el que priman las novelas rápidas y ligeras, en las que constantemente se debe sorprender al lector con algo nuevo, inesperado y efectista, esta novela me ha recordado que la literatura no busca entretener. La literatura existe para hurgar en esos rincones del alma que en el día a día no podemos o sabemos estudiar, existe para regocijarnos en un mundo que puede que exista y puede que no, existe para saber que yo no soy así pero pude ser así, como decía Miguel Delibes. Cuando leo un libro lento, hecho con mimo, me recuerdo a mí misma que eso es lo que me llena, no el sumar páginas a una lista ni el ansia por que otra gente piense que soy guay por leer.
Es una historia sencilla, sencillísima. De un matrimonio con tres hijos en la década de los 40 en Estados Unidos, que viven y gestionan una granja (gracias a lo cual él no es alistado para la guerra). Tiene una vida plácida y feliz, hasta que algo terrible ocurre, y todo se desmorona desde dentro.
Aunque es una historia sobre la pérdida, por supuesto, yo diría que el núcleo de la narración es la culpa. Qué profunda, oscura y corrosiva es la culpa, cuando somos incapaces de asumir algo que hemos hecho o dejado de hacer, cuando acusamos al otro de algo, en voz alta o en silencio. Porque continuar viviendo con la culpa anidada en el corazón es durísimo, y eso es lo que les pasa a los personajes de la historia. Que se quedan vacíos por dentro. Que se quedan anclados en un instante, mientras que en el exterior el tiempo pasa.
Me ha gustado el estilo simple pero rico de la autora, del que he disfrutado gracias a una buena traducción. Me han desconcertado algunas decisiones de puntuación de diálogos, pero por lo demás la edición me ha parecido buena. Supongo que, desde cierto punto de vista, la novela puede ser objeto de crítica por idealizar un estilo de vida que hoy en día se considera obsoleto o anticuado. A mí me parece un poco ridículo tachar de malo algo solo porque hoy en día los personajes no actuarían así o no tendrían esa mentalidad (por ejemplo, la concepción del matrimonio). Benevolencia es una novela que habla del campo, del matrimonio, de la paternidad, de la familia, en resumen, y también de la incomunicación, la pérdida, la culpa, el abandono y el perdón. Sin estridencias, pero ahí está. En un mundo en el que priman las novelas rápidas y ligeras, en las que constantemente se debe sorprender al lector con algo nuevo, inesperado y efectista, esta novela me ha recordado que la literatura no busca entretener. La literatura existe para hurgar en esos rincones del alma que en el día a día no podemos o sabemos estudiar, existe para regocijarnos en un mundo que puede que exista y puede que no, existe para saber que yo no soy así pero pude ser así, como decía Miguel Delibes. Cuando leo un libro lento, hecho con mimo, me recuerdo a mí misma que eso es lo que me llena, no el sumar páginas a una lista ni el ansia por que otra gente piense que soy guay por leer.
February 2, 2024
« Plus grands que le monde » est de ces textes qui vous touchent dès les premières pages par cette volonté farouche incarnée par Doris, la mère, de mettre sa famille à l’abri de monde. Le roman raconte l’histoire de la famille Senter. Doris et Tup sont propriétaires d’une ferme laitière dans le Maine. Ils ont trois enfants : Sonny, Dodie, et Beston. Dans le récit qui s’étend sur une vingtaine d’années (de 1947 à 1965), plusieurs voix prennent la parole pour exprimer le quotidien de la famille, le travail à la ferme, mais surtout leurs émotions.
Le personnage principal de « Plus grands que le monde » est cette ferme. Elle exige tous les sacrifices, mais donne aussi toutes les joies. Le travail quotidien y est difficile, exigeant, et souvent pénible, mais il permet à la famille Senter de vivre dans un lieu exceptionnel où la nature et les saisons sont respectées, et où, en son sein, ils se sentent protégés. Cette terre si chère au peuple américain offre toutes les bontés, toutes les satisfactions à condition d’en prendre soin. Alors, elle devient mère nourricière et mère protectrice. « La ferme est un rempart, c’est ce que j’apprends à mes enfants. Ce monde, puis le monde extérieur. Nous sommes en sécurité sur cette terre, dans cette maison. Une fois le savoir acquis, impossible de le désapprendre ou de se détourner de ses fardeaux. Mais ici, il est possible de trouver de l’ordre, ainsi que la liberté d’aimer farouchement tout ce que nous connaissons. »
Très tôt, Doris a la certitude que vivre loin des autres, mettre à l’abri du monde les siens participe au bonheur du foyer. « Ici, nous sommes à l’écart du monde et menons nos vies à notre guise. ». Plus les enfants grandissent, plus il est difficile de laisser quiconque pénétrer leur cercle intime, comme si, un étranger était en capacité de déranger l’ordre établi et le cours des choses. A contrario, Tup est conscient que malgré le devoir de protection que sa femme s’est fixé comme mission, leurs enfants doivent grandir en ouvrant les clôtures de la ferme et en vivant leurs propres expériences. « Impossible de lui faire entendre raison. Elle ne veut pas croire que nos enfants peuvent grandir et devenir forts sans qu’elle ait pour cela à garder notre foyer à l’abri du monde. »
« Plus grands que le monde » raconte cette vie-cocon, les lentes percées vers l’extérieur, et le dehors qui pousse doucement les barrières de la ferme. C’est un roman d’ambiance, lent, qui raconte une routine, une famille, une ferme, et la façon dont on s’y aime… Profondément. Éperdument. Il y a d’abord l’amour profond que se vouent Doris et Tup et dont les enfants ont une conscience aiguë. « Ils s’aiment, m’étais-je dit. Ils t’aiment. Ici, l’amour ne manque pas. ». Puis, il y a l’amour fraternel qui lie ces deux frères et cette sœur, que rien ne saurait briser. Dans ce lieu où coule une rivière, où les hululements des hiboux rythment les saisons et les nuits, l’amour est au centre de tout.
Jusqu’au drame qui va frapper cette famille et faire voler en éclats leurs certitudes, leurs habitudes, leurs convictions en faisant chavirer jusqu’à leur foi. Il y a eu un « Avant », et un « Pendant », parcelles du roman qui commencent par des versets bibliques. Il y aura un « Après » et un « Ici » où la foi sera remplacée par des vers de poésie. Quatre parties distinctes pour parler de cinq membres d’une famille, de leur alliance qui glisse vers des sommes d’individualités. Trois voix s’élèvent : celle de Doris, de Tup et de Dodie.
« Plus grands que le monde » se focalise sur les répercussions d’une collision qui vient frapper des êtres brisés qui vont devoir se reconstruire. Tel le travail à la ferme, le fardeau de la douleur est lourd à porter. Pour certains il est si écrasant qu’il ne peut être soulevé. Une famille c’est une ossature composée de plusieurs humanités qui ne vivent pas tous les choses de la même manière, qui agissent et réagissent de manière parfois totalement opposée. Dans la peine, il est parfois impossible de consoler l’autre, impossible de lui venir en aide, impossible même de le comprendre tout à fait. Certains choisissent des chemins de traverse, d’autres des enfermements, d’autres encore des fuites. Comment guérir de cette souffrance extrême ? Où puiser les ressources nécessaires lorsque la ferme bénie devient la ferme maudite ? Comment retrouver le « Chaque journée est un cadeau » ?
Meredith Hall décortique les itinéraires de chacun afin que ces êtres « Plus grands que le monde », âmes brisées, puissent se ressouder et continuer à être une famille. De prison interne au souffle du dehors, de l’angoisse des jours qui passent aux nuits où la nature reprend ses droits, elle amène le lecteur à entrer en empathie avec ces personnages que la vie n’a pas épargnés pour les mener de la nuit profonde à une autre lumière. « Autrefois, nous nous étions crus inattaquable, à toute épreuve, immuables. » Aujourd’hui, il faut pardonner les douleurs du passé pour renaître et parvenir à ressentir à nouveau cette vie qui palpite.
« Plus grands que le monde » est un récit intime et intimiste, un voyage intérieur où les douleurs des personnages deviennent les nôtres. Loin de juger les actes de chaque membre de cette famille, le lecteur ressent une profonde tendresse pour chacun d’entre eux et comprend dans son coeur cette culpabilité qui les étreint pour laisser place à la bienveillance, la bonté, « Beneficence », le titre choisi pour la version originale. C’est également un texte sur les valeurs et les leçons de vie que les parents laissent à leurs enfants et la façon dont ceux-ci les reçoivent, ce qu’ils en font une fois adultes, et comment ils les utilisent pour se construire. « J’enseigne à mes enfants que nous sommes responsables de tout ce que nous faisons et ne faisons pas ». L’imperfection des êtres fait jaillir toute leur humanité en mettant toujours au centre des existences ce questionnement : suis-je une belle personne ? Un combat intérieur qui nous anime tous. En utilisant plusieurs voix, sur plusieurs années, Meredith Hall explore avec beaucoup de finesse les conséquences du drame sur des vies en devenir.
« Plus grands que le monde » est une bénédiction pour qui cherche à appréhender le pardon envers soi, envers les autres. Dans l’opacité de la douleur subsiste toujours une flamme qui palpite… Un roman profondément lumineux qui éclaire ce à quoi nous tenons le plus dans la vie.
Traduction : Laurence Richard
Le personnage principal de « Plus grands que le monde » est cette ferme. Elle exige tous les sacrifices, mais donne aussi toutes les joies. Le travail quotidien y est difficile, exigeant, et souvent pénible, mais il permet à la famille Senter de vivre dans un lieu exceptionnel où la nature et les saisons sont respectées, et où, en son sein, ils se sentent protégés. Cette terre si chère au peuple américain offre toutes les bontés, toutes les satisfactions à condition d’en prendre soin. Alors, elle devient mère nourricière et mère protectrice. « La ferme est un rempart, c’est ce que j’apprends à mes enfants. Ce monde, puis le monde extérieur. Nous sommes en sécurité sur cette terre, dans cette maison. Une fois le savoir acquis, impossible de le désapprendre ou de se détourner de ses fardeaux. Mais ici, il est possible de trouver de l’ordre, ainsi que la liberté d’aimer farouchement tout ce que nous connaissons. »
Très tôt, Doris a la certitude que vivre loin des autres, mettre à l’abri du monde les siens participe au bonheur du foyer. « Ici, nous sommes à l’écart du monde et menons nos vies à notre guise. ». Plus les enfants grandissent, plus il est difficile de laisser quiconque pénétrer leur cercle intime, comme si, un étranger était en capacité de déranger l’ordre établi et le cours des choses. A contrario, Tup est conscient que malgré le devoir de protection que sa femme s’est fixé comme mission, leurs enfants doivent grandir en ouvrant les clôtures de la ferme et en vivant leurs propres expériences. « Impossible de lui faire entendre raison. Elle ne veut pas croire que nos enfants peuvent grandir et devenir forts sans qu’elle ait pour cela à garder notre foyer à l’abri du monde. »
« Plus grands que le monde » raconte cette vie-cocon, les lentes percées vers l’extérieur, et le dehors qui pousse doucement les barrières de la ferme. C’est un roman d’ambiance, lent, qui raconte une routine, une famille, une ferme, et la façon dont on s’y aime… Profondément. Éperdument. Il y a d’abord l’amour profond que se vouent Doris et Tup et dont les enfants ont une conscience aiguë. « Ils s’aiment, m’étais-je dit. Ils t’aiment. Ici, l’amour ne manque pas. ». Puis, il y a l’amour fraternel qui lie ces deux frères et cette sœur, que rien ne saurait briser. Dans ce lieu où coule une rivière, où les hululements des hiboux rythment les saisons et les nuits, l’amour est au centre de tout.
Jusqu’au drame qui va frapper cette famille et faire voler en éclats leurs certitudes, leurs habitudes, leurs convictions en faisant chavirer jusqu’à leur foi. Il y a eu un « Avant », et un « Pendant », parcelles du roman qui commencent par des versets bibliques. Il y aura un « Après » et un « Ici » où la foi sera remplacée par des vers de poésie. Quatre parties distinctes pour parler de cinq membres d’une famille, de leur alliance qui glisse vers des sommes d’individualités. Trois voix s’élèvent : celle de Doris, de Tup et de Dodie.
« Plus grands que le monde » se focalise sur les répercussions d’une collision qui vient frapper des êtres brisés qui vont devoir se reconstruire. Tel le travail à la ferme, le fardeau de la douleur est lourd à porter. Pour certains il est si écrasant qu’il ne peut être soulevé. Une famille c’est une ossature composée de plusieurs humanités qui ne vivent pas tous les choses de la même manière, qui agissent et réagissent de manière parfois totalement opposée. Dans la peine, il est parfois impossible de consoler l’autre, impossible de lui venir en aide, impossible même de le comprendre tout à fait. Certains choisissent des chemins de traverse, d’autres des enfermements, d’autres encore des fuites. Comment guérir de cette souffrance extrême ? Où puiser les ressources nécessaires lorsque la ferme bénie devient la ferme maudite ? Comment retrouver le « Chaque journée est un cadeau » ?
Meredith Hall décortique les itinéraires de chacun afin que ces êtres « Plus grands que le monde », âmes brisées, puissent se ressouder et continuer à être une famille. De prison interne au souffle du dehors, de l’angoisse des jours qui passent aux nuits où la nature reprend ses droits, elle amène le lecteur à entrer en empathie avec ces personnages que la vie n’a pas épargnés pour les mener de la nuit profonde à une autre lumière. « Autrefois, nous nous étions crus inattaquable, à toute épreuve, immuables. » Aujourd’hui, il faut pardonner les douleurs du passé pour renaître et parvenir à ressentir à nouveau cette vie qui palpite.
« Plus grands que le monde » est un récit intime et intimiste, un voyage intérieur où les douleurs des personnages deviennent les nôtres. Loin de juger les actes de chaque membre de cette famille, le lecteur ressent une profonde tendresse pour chacun d’entre eux et comprend dans son coeur cette culpabilité qui les étreint pour laisser place à la bienveillance, la bonté, « Beneficence », le titre choisi pour la version originale. C’est également un texte sur les valeurs et les leçons de vie que les parents laissent à leurs enfants et la façon dont ceux-ci les reçoivent, ce qu’ils en font une fois adultes, et comment ils les utilisent pour se construire. « J’enseigne à mes enfants que nous sommes responsables de tout ce que nous faisons et ne faisons pas ». L’imperfection des êtres fait jaillir toute leur humanité en mettant toujours au centre des existences ce questionnement : suis-je une belle personne ? Un combat intérieur qui nous anime tous. En utilisant plusieurs voix, sur plusieurs années, Meredith Hall explore avec beaucoup de finesse les conséquences du drame sur des vies en devenir.
« Plus grands que le monde » est une bénédiction pour qui cherche à appréhender le pardon envers soi, envers les autres. Dans l’opacité de la douleur subsiste toujours une flamme qui palpite… Un roman profondément lumineux qui éclaire ce à quoi nous tenons le plus dans la vie.
Traduction : Laurence Richard
May 27, 2024
4,5 ⭐️ La 4e de couverture résume vraiment bien ce qu’est ce roman: une histoire bouleversante, dramatique, mais belle et lumineuse. Comment on se reconstruit après un drame familial? De façon individuelle et familiale? C’est ce dont il est question à travers les yeux de trois personnages principaux qui s’alternent la narration sur presque 20 ans. On prend le temps de bien mesurer l’impact du drame. Le rythme est lent, mais nécessaire: on plonge au cœur de cette famille meurtrie. Les personnages sont bien développés. Bref, formidable premier roman pour Meredith Hall. C’est beau et touchant et, malgré tout le drame, plein d’amour.
October 11, 2022
I felt so many emotions while reading this book. It is the story of a family that lives on a farm in rural Maine. It is a tale of love, family, loss, grief, regret and redemption. It is told from the point of view of three members of the family: the father (Tup), the mother (Doris) and daughter (Dodie). The book spans a couple of decades, from the 1940s to the 1960s. Over those years, the reader gets to see how the members of the family struggle, fall apart and make their way back together again.
June 6, 2021
I think I hated this book. Not even sure why I finished it.
Tl;dr: farm family leaves loaded gun for kids to play with. Kid gets killed. Wife goes into long depression. Husband has a second family to compensate for no sex with wife. The birth of an grandson brings reconciliation, but also the husband abandons his other family. Wtf.
Tl;dr: farm family leaves loaded gun for kids to play with. Kid gets killed. Wife goes into long depression. Husband has a second family to compensate for no sex with wife. The birth of an grandson brings reconciliation, but also the husband abandons his other family. Wtf.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 29, 2021
Ahhhh. This novel is a graceful, intimate, powerful, sensitive family saga. It needs to be part of each of our libraries or at the very least, a shared read.
October 7, 2021
4.5 stars. This is outstanding.
December 17, 2020
“Stories don’t go away, I have learned that. Whatever happens is with us forever. Whatever has ever happened in this house and in this room is with us forever. That other life endures in these walls, all of it. We are a family. We love each other deeply. We will return to ourselves. We hold to that longing.” — Dodie Senter
Family. Home. Perfection. Is there anything that relies on each other more to make a place a home than family? For the Senter family, their perfect world is shattered in one horrific moment by a tragedy that lies at the heart of Meredith Hall’s debut novel, Beneficence. Hall is an essayist, poet and now a novelist, sharing her time between California and Maine. Her 2017 award-winning memoir, Without a Map, was a New York Times bestseller.
The Senter family has lived and worked their land in Alstead, Maine, for generations. The valleys and hills and animals, the daily chores of gardening, milking the cows and the creek that runs through it all surround five lives breathing together as one, a family making a go of it just after World War II. For Tup Senter, his wife Doris and their three children, Sonny, Dodie and Beston, the world is shattered on one cold day in March. This tragic day will reside in each of them and tug at the very fabric of what makes them a family — love and trust in one another.
That day and the rest that follow will test the bond they have for each other as they separately deal with a loss that dims the family’s light. For Doris, her light almost goes out, changing everything going forward. She isolates and closes her door to what was once all she lived for — her husband, her children and the home they made together.
“It has been two days now. The noise of my wailing has finally ceased. Now we enter our new story. The other one is over forever.” — Doris Senter
Tup Senter knows the responsibility he has to the generations of his family that worked this farm before him. On a distant hill under the old pines, their gravestones look down upon his work as he tends the land and provides for a family that depends on him, even more so now.
Tup will flee to live a double life while still providing for his family, but for how long? Dodie is both her mother and father. Being strong, resilient and smart, she becomes the maternal presence when her mother closes herself off from the world. Beston, the quiet one, fills his days with introspective thought, music and an unease that will eventually consume him if he does not leave. And Sonny — the oldest of the Senter children — his is the light that makes this family complete, and he is a daily reminder of possibility.
Spanning 18 years, Beneficence is told in four parts: Before, During, After and Here. All are rooted to that cold, windswept day. The incessant tapping of sleet against the windowpane reverberates throughout the story, a metronome keeping time as a family tries to move on.
In chapters that oscillate back and forth in narrative, Tup, Doris and Dodie tell the story, each unique in perspective and emotion. This is where the strength of the writing shines. Hall is a poet, so her choice of a word, phrase or emotive adjective is often perfect. The writing is ethereal, emotional, heartrending and heartwarming all at the same time. Such can be said of life.
This beautifully told story reminded me of a quilt being made, a family heirloom that is sewn by loving hands stitch-by-stitch. Its patterns are of family, its colors are of love and the light it holds constantly changes from shadow to bright white.
And like that quilt, the bond of this family is real. Like when Sonny, just two years old, wants to see his newborn sister Dodie to hold her in his arms and welcome her into the family. “I have always believed that something stitched them together in that moment.” — Tup Senter
Loss, grief and guilt will test that bond, tugging and pulling at the stiches. But because of this family’s devotion to one another, the stiches refuse to yield. Instead, honesty, forgiveness and love will be called on to heal this family, each in their own circumstance, in their own time.
Together, they work to bring the light back into the folds of the fields, the farm and their home. And with the light comes grace from that stone marker now among all the others on that distant hill under the old pines. “We will ourselves to live this day grateful and unguarded. We decide. We make ourselves ready to participate in beneficence and goodness. There is no peace outside that.” — Tup Senter
This is a special book, nearly perfect. It is a story that lingers, and one that will remain with me for the remainder of my time in this world.
Family. Home. Perfection. Is there anything that relies on each other more to make a place a home than family? For the Senter family, their perfect world is shattered in one horrific moment by a tragedy that lies at the heart of Meredith Hall’s debut novel, Beneficence. Hall is an essayist, poet and now a novelist, sharing her time between California and Maine. Her 2017 award-winning memoir, Without a Map, was a New York Times bestseller.
The Senter family has lived and worked their land in Alstead, Maine, for generations. The valleys and hills and animals, the daily chores of gardening, milking the cows and the creek that runs through it all surround five lives breathing together as one, a family making a go of it just after World War II. For Tup Senter, his wife Doris and their three children, Sonny, Dodie and Beston, the world is shattered on one cold day in March. This tragic day will reside in each of them and tug at the very fabric of what makes them a family — love and trust in one another.
That day and the rest that follow will test the bond they have for each other as they separately deal with a loss that dims the family’s light. For Doris, her light almost goes out, changing everything going forward. She isolates and closes her door to what was once all she lived for — her husband, her children and the home they made together.
“It has been two days now. The noise of my wailing has finally ceased. Now we enter our new story. The other one is over forever.” — Doris Senter
Tup Senter knows the responsibility he has to the generations of his family that worked this farm before him. On a distant hill under the old pines, their gravestones look down upon his work as he tends the land and provides for a family that depends on him, even more so now.
Tup will flee to live a double life while still providing for his family, but for how long? Dodie is both her mother and father. Being strong, resilient and smart, she becomes the maternal presence when her mother closes herself off from the world. Beston, the quiet one, fills his days with introspective thought, music and an unease that will eventually consume him if he does not leave. And Sonny — the oldest of the Senter children — his is the light that makes this family complete, and he is a daily reminder of possibility.
Spanning 18 years, Beneficence is told in four parts: Before, During, After and Here. All are rooted to that cold, windswept day. The incessant tapping of sleet against the windowpane reverberates throughout the story, a metronome keeping time as a family tries to move on.
In chapters that oscillate back and forth in narrative, Tup, Doris and Dodie tell the story, each unique in perspective and emotion. This is where the strength of the writing shines. Hall is a poet, so her choice of a word, phrase or emotive adjective is often perfect. The writing is ethereal, emotional, heartrending and heartwarming all at the same time. Such can be said of life.
This beautifully told story reminded me of a quilt being made, a family heirloom that is sewn by loving hands stitch-by-stitch. Its patterns are of family, its colors are of love and the light it holds constantly changes from shadow to bright white.
And like that quilt, the bond of this family is real. Like when Sonny, just two years old, wants to see his newborn sister Dodie to hold her in his arms and welcome her into the family. “I have always believed that something stitched them together in that moment.” — Tup Senter
Loss, grief and guilt will test that bond, tugging and pulling at the stiches. But because of this family’s devotion to one another, the stiches refuse to yield. Instead, honesty, forgiveness and love will be called on to heal this family, each in their own circumstance, in their own time.
Together, they work to bring the light back into the folds of the fields, the farm and their home. And with the light comes grace from that stone marker now among all the others on that distant hill under the old pines. “We will ourselves to live this day grateful and unguarded. We decide. We make ourselves ready to participate in beneficence and goodness. There is no peace outside that.” — Tup Senter
This is a special book, nearly perfect. It is a story that lingers, and one that will remain with me for the remainder of my time in this world.
November 5, 2020
A deep, ravishing, quiet tale of a family upended by grief, a timely and topical exploration of what it means to be a family, and yet divided.
Years ago, I read and loved Meredith Hall's sweeping memoir, WITHOUT A MAP, and knew I had to get my hands on her first fiction, which is every bit luminous and perceptive.
When they met in the 1930s, Doris and Tup's love was deep and visceral and immediate. Doris leaves behind her mercantile family, a life running her father's shop was in the works, for Tup's family farm, where his parents and grandparents and great-grandparents worked the land and are buried underneath the pines on farm cemetery. Their lives follow the calming--predictable--cycles of the seasons, the land. Cows are milked, calves are birthed, hay is rolled. There's the garden and the canning, the laundry, the children--all three of them. Each day, they are grateful.
But then the unthinkable happens. Faith is shattered. Grief permeates the walls, the land. The tidy farm starts to crumble; Doris is no longer able to hold it together. Tup struggles, too. Here, the family is eclipsed by grief and guilt and more.
Under Hall's expert hand, we are guided through these seasons, these cycles of love and grief, and farm work. We traverse decades and raw, unimaginable pain. Still, she writes with a full heart, with great, palpable compassion casting a light on the darker, but authentic sides of life.
BENEFICENCE reads like it *could* be a memoir; there are a good deal of "I recalls" and "I don't remembers." It is written from multiple POVs, in first person, which could potentially be confusing to the reader who perhaps read Hall's earlier memoir. There were times I had to pause and remind myself, "No, this is fiction; it is not a memoir." Also, I think there are some similarities between WITHOUT A MAP and BENEFICIENCE...of course there are. No one writer can't not have an overlap in theme and overall voice.
Here are some noted similarities: both take place in the Northeast. BENEFICIENCE is set in dairy farm in Maine. WITHOUT A MAP is set, in part, at a farmhouse in New Hampshire, but in that narrative, the author is not grounded by the farm; she feels untethered by her circumstance, she roams the earth. In both stories, I found my interior landscape--the interior of the book painted by the author-- a deep, textured milk gray. That's the grief, if you will, but it's done with a light hand, a grace and beauty. Here, it's about the loss of a child(ren)--in all forms--marriage, death, miscarriage, opportunity, and also, the same could be said for WITHOUT A MAP.
Once I was able to set these differences aside, learn the rhythm of the farm, I was enraptured. There were several lift-altering twists that made me sit up a little straighter, had me puzzling out implications, and will stay with me long after the last page is closed.
I was reminded, in part, of the work of Kent Haruf, but also William Kent Krueger (ORDINARY GRACE) meets the classical writing of Willa Cather and a touch of Ursula Hegi (THE PATRON SAINT OF PREGNANT GIRLS)
Years ago, I read and loved Meredith Hall's sweeping memoir, WITHOUT A MAP, and knew I had to get my hands on her first fiction, which is every bit luminous and perceptive.
When they met in the 1930s, Doris and Tup's love was deep and visceral and immediate. Doris leaves behind her mercantile family, a life running her father's shop was in the works, for Tup's family farm, where his parents and grandparents and great-grandparents worked the land and are buried underneath the pines on farm cemetery. Their lives follow the calming--predictable--cycles of the seasons, the land. Cows are milked, calves are birthed, hay is rolled. There's the garden and the canning, the laundry, the children--all three of them. Each day, they are grateful.
But then the unthinkable happens. Faith is shattered. Grief permeates the walls, the land. The tidy farm starts to crumble; Doris is no longer able to hold it together. Tup struggles, too. Here, the family is eclipsed by grief and guilt and more.
Under Hall's expert hand, we are guided through these seasons, these cycles of love and grief, and farm work. We traverse decades and raw, unimaginable pain. Still, she writes with a full heart, with great, palpable compassion casting a light on the darker, but authentic sides of life.
BENEFICENCE reads like it *could* be a memoir; there are a good deal of "I recalls" and "I don't remembers." It is written from multiple POVs, in first person, which could potentially be confusing to the reader who perhaps read Hall's earlier memoir. There were times I had to pause and remind myself, "No, this is fiction; it is not a memoir." Also, I think there are some similarities between WITHOUT A MAP and BENEFICIENCE...of course there are. No one writer can't not have an overlap in theme and overall voice.
Here are some noted similarities: both take place in the Northeast. BENEFICIENCE is set in dairy farm in Maine. WITHOUT A MAP is set, in part, at a farmhouse in New Hampshire, but in that narrative, the author is not grounded by the farm; she feels untethered by her circumstance, she roams the earth. In both stories, I found my interior landscape--the interior of the book painted by the author-- a deep, textured milk gray. That's the grief, if you will, but it's done with a light hand, a grace and beauty. Here, it's about the loss of a child(ren)--in all forms--marriage, death, miscarriage, opportunity, and also, the same could be said for WITHOUT A MAP.
Once I was able to set these differences aside, learn the rhythm of the farm, I was enraptured. There were several lift-altering twists that made me sit up a little straighter, had me puzzling out implications, and will stay with me long after the last page is closed.
I was reminded, in part, of the work of Kent Haruf, but also William Kent Krueger (ORDINARY GRACE) meets the classical writing of Willa Cather and a touch of Ursula Hegi (THE PATRON SAINT OF PREGNANT GIRLS)
December 23, 2020
Unspeakable loss. Each characters' "voice" comes thru achingly, beautifully, articulate! I could "feel" the love family members had for one another, for the farm, the necessary chores, caring for the animals, the gardens. I highly recommend this book, I will definitely read more by Meredith Hall.
January 2, 2021
I'm reading with the MPBN Book Read/book club. This is a Maine author. It is a novel. It looks like a tear-jerker. Rave reviews though. I'm looking forward to starting it in a few seconds. I'm so glad I read this book. It helps you understand what families go through when grief and depression is surrounded by them. Families really hurt during grief and it's really hard to get through that grief. I've heard it takes at the very least six months to get over a major crisis in your life like a death, buying a house, starting a new job, getting married, having a child, having a car accident, cancer, bankruptcy, etc. etc. People are all different, we all are affected differently by these life changes and this book shows us how this family dealt with it and how they survived it. We can't judge people because we are not in their shoes or their life. Grief is really hard, depression is extremely difficult to overcome. I recommend people read this book because it shows how a family struggles to survive with grief, depression and shows us just how hard it is and how love and family helped them through their grief.
February 11, 2021
This was a lovely book to read. A picture-perfect family on a picture-perfect mid-century Maine dairy farm is confronted with a horrible tragedy and attempts, very poorly at first and in fact for a long time, to deal with said tragedy. The desire for healing is palpable, but no one seems to know how to go about finding it. It seems that the passage of time and the natural flow of life is the only possible balm. So, as that balm is applied, things indeed do "get better." Time really does heal all wounds. But the healing is hollow. Man on his own cannot just forget the past, let alone atone for it. There are religious tints around the edges of the plot, but those hues are intentionally rejected when it comes time to "move on." And that is the true tragedy of this otherwise captivating tale.
January 27, 2024
One of the most beautifully written books I have ever read.
November 8, 2020
This is a gorgeously written meditation on loss and trauma and a quiet celebration of enduring love within a rural American family. The tone is elegiac, each sentence weighed and considered, the effect gorgeously poetic. Each character in the family responds to the unimaginable in a different way, which threatens the family as a whole. This is what tragedy does, and only the deepest, truest love can survive such stress. Don't read this novel if you are expecting action or propulsive plot. Everything about Beneficence is understated. But it resonates with soul and beauty and the deepest possible love of this earth and its flawed and suffering creatures. Meredith Hall is profoundly gifted and wise.
October 15, 2024
Es un libro duro, no es para leer si estás en momento bajo de ánimo. Pero refleja muy bien la vivencia de un drama familiar tras un accidente: la depresión y aislamiento de la madre, incapaz de salir y acercarse a su marido e hijos a pesar de su amor. El sentimiento de culpa del padre por no haber podido proteger a su familia. La hija que tiene que asumir el papel de su madre incapacitada para una vida normal…
También es una reflexión sobre el amor y la historia familiar, que no es solo momentos buenos. Y una interesante visión de las relaciones extramatrimoniales.
Por todo esto, me ha costado, pero me parece bueno
También es una reflexión sobre el amor y la historia familiar, que no es solo momentos buenos. Y una interesante visión de las relaciones extramatrimoniales.
Por todo esto, me ha costado, pero me parece bueno
December 26, 2025
Une famille de fermiers américains quelque peu idéalisée se retrouve bouleversée par un drame terrible. Le roman se divise en trois parties : avant (un bonheur tellement sans tache qu'on pressent la catastrophe), pendant, après. Et l'après dure longtemps : on suit les conséquences de ce drame sur des années à travers le point de vue de plusieurs personnages, ce qui est intéressant. En revanche, l'écriture est un peu plate ; la récurrence trop appuyée des thèmes du pardon, de l'amour et de la culpabilité, et une exaltation un peu américaine de la famille, du couple hétérosexuel (très genré) et de la religion m'ont un peu gênée.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 319 reviews