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Gypsy Bones
Where the Great Plains begin, at the border of Minnesota and North Dakota, three families struggle with the land and with one another over generations. Distance and silence cut into their minds and hearts, knife on bone. Some hide from their suffering, some run, some turn to violence and greed. Into this wound comes the "mongrel child" Hannah, who opens herself to the remains of her people. In search of healing, she makes the hero's journey to the core of their affliction and back.
248 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 27, 2012
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
July 4, 2012
It's my own book---how can I help but love it? I worked for years to bring it into the world. This is a project I've believed in. It's a story I have loved, with characters that I grew to know over many years. It is the first of my novels to come completely from my imagination. In other words, its characters and plot don't in any way come from people or situations I've known from my own living. The themes, though, I have known. The silences of many midwestern men, I have known. The way life can make women harden and then break down the center -- that I've known, too. I know about running away when you just can't live another moment where you're standing. You'll be crushed, you think. You'll implode. You can't see any way out, and so if a crack appears, an aperture, the slightest opening, you'll rush towards it before it closes again. Just maybe, you think, there will be freedom on the other side, but there hardly ever is.
We suffer affliction; we forgive; we are forgiven--if not by one another, then by Life itself. The question always is: can we open to it? All of it? This story doesn't shy away from evil. These people know evil both subtle and obvious. They grapple with it. We wonder where the grace might be, from where the strength and light and faith might come to rise above or to embrace what is the perfect affliction for any given soul. It can break our hearts. It can reduce us to bone.
I suspect I wrote this novel to teach myself not to run away from what is most real in my life, but rather to face it, embrace it, learn from it, and be transformed. Over the years of visions and revisions (as the poet says) I've come to understand the challenge put to each of its characters. Their challenges reflect my own, as they might also reflect yours.
Author, Beryl Singleton Bissell writes after reading the book:
The lyric beauty of Lore Weber’s writing transforms a disquieting story of abandonment and loss into one that shimmers with hope. A complex saga of several generations of women from four different families, the narrative peaks around the life of one young girl, Hannah, whose courage uncovers the mystery that binds these lives together. An amazing novel from a writer whose stories gift us all. – Beryl Singleton Bissell, author of The Scent of God and A View of the Lake.
We suffer affliction; we forgive; we are forgiven--if not by one another, then by Life itself. The question always is: can we open to it? All of it? This story doesn't shy away from evil. These people know evil both subtle and obvious. They grapple with it. We wonder where the grace might be, from where the strength and light and faith might come to rise above or to embrace what is the perfect affliction for any given soul. It can break our hearts. It can reduce us to bone.
I suspect I wrote this novel to teach myself not to run away from what is most real in my life, but rather to face it, embrace it, learn from it, and be transformed. Over the years of visions and revisions (as the poet says) I've come to understand the challenge put to each of its characters. Their challenges reflect my own, as they might also reflect yours.
Author, Beryl Singleton Bissell writes after reading the book:
The lyric beauty of Lore Weber’s writing transforms a disquieting story of abandonment and loss into one that shimmers with hope. A complex saga of several generations of women from four different families, the narrative peaks around the life of one young girl, Hannah, whose courage uncovers the mystery that binds these lives together. An amazing novel from a writer whose stories gift us all. – Beryl Singleton Bissell, author of The Scent of God and A View of the Lake.
February 8, 2014
A Memorable Tale
Christian Lore Weber skillfully weaves threads of women's wisdom and mysticism into this fine tapestry of story. Any woman who has struggled to find herself, or labored to regain lost pieces of self, or has discovered darker facets of self in her shadow would probably enjoy this book very much. Ms Weber's moulding of multidimensional characters, and her ability to breathe life into familiar geography, enhance the story. Even though one might find the book one they do not want to put down,this is not a book to rush through, it should be consumed in small pieces, savored.
Christian Lore Weber skillfully weaves threads of women's wisdom and mysticism into this fine tapestry of story. Any woman who has struggled to find herself, or labored to regain lost pieces of self, or has discovered darker facets of self in her shadow would probably enjoy this book very much. Ms Weber's moulding of multidimensional characters, and her ability to breathe life into familiar geography, enhance the story. Even though one might find the book one they do not want to put down,this is not a book to rush through, it should be consumed in small pieces, savored.
July 10, 2012
The beauty of the writing is surpassed only by the power of the story itself. The plains of North Dakota and the plains of the soul merge in this fine novel about the women of four families who farm and live on the edge of their own darkness.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews