What do you think?
Rate this book
The Gathering Room
After Aunt Ernestus comes to visit, a family living in seclusion as caretakers for a cemetery find the time has come to rejoin the mainstream of society.
186 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1981
13 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
June 28, 2009
After reading The Court of Stone Children, I think I had a thing for people from other times. I think that coloured my enjoyment of this book, so that it seemed better than it was. Although, to be honest, I didn't remember much of it until I reread it.
Reading it now, it feels a bit over the top with the flowery language, and the parents seem very odd and hippyish. The one thing I do like is the ambiguity of whether the people Mudge meets are actually there or just in his imagination, and what the parents know or think about this. They've obviously been detrimental to the poor kids' development, but do love him and try to break him out of the isolation they have been in once they realise that it is time to do so.
There is not much plot, and except for Mudge we don't get much sense of the other characters' inner lives. Still a fairly enjoyable read.
Reading it now, it feels a bit over the top with the flowery language, and the parents seem very odd and hippyish. The one thing I do like is the ambiguity of whether the people Mudge meets are actually there or just in his imagination, and what the parents know or think about this. They've obviously been detrimental to the poor kids' development, but do love him and try to break him out of the isolation they have been in once they realise that it is time to do so.
There is not much plot, and except for Mudge we don't get much sense of the other characters' inner lives. Still a fairly enjoyable read.
Displaying 1 of 1 review