Tipton

by Hilary Holladay

In the years leading up to World War II, life at the Tipton Home is tranquil. The children help run the farm that sustains them and obey Dale and Muriel Jenkins, the couple running this rural Oklahoma orphanage on a tight budget. But the arrival of a sensual and impulsive young housemother interrupts Tipton's gentle rhythms. Alice Williams quickly attracts the admiration of the teenaged boys. Ross Gentry in particular develops feelings for Alice, who nurses him to health after a brutal fight and agrees to help him find out the identity of his birth parents. Defying her Aunt Muriel and Uncle Dale, Alice flirts with Ross and the other boys, meddles in orphanage business, and goes out drinking with Anna Boyer, a fellow housemother who has a crush on her. All the while, Alice longs for her estranged husband. Macklin Williams now lives in Rapidan, Virginia, where his high-handed great uncle has promised to pay for his education so long as he tends the horses at Red Road Farm. While Alice dreams of Macklin, he tries mightily to forget her and retain his place at the family estate he loves. The attack on Pearl Harbor changes everything. Ross forgoes a college scholarship for military service. Alice decides to leave Tipton as well. With Anna's reluctant help, she seeks out Macklin, who stopped communicating with her long ago. Set against the tumultuous backdrop of World War II, Tipton is a sweeping coming-of-age story about love and friendship and unavoidable heartbreak.

344 pages, Paperback

First published December 2, 2014

About the author

Hilary Holladay is a novelist and biographer whose heart belongs to poetry. For many years she taught American literature, including the literature of the Beat Movement, at the University of Massachusetts in Lowell; more recently she has taught at James Madison University and the University of Virginia. Her current favorite poet is Denise Levertov.

Reviews

[Cheryl pdx · Rating 5 out of 5]

I finished TIPTON a handful of days ago and the characters and their journeys are still resonating with me. What will Alice do next? What on earth was Macklin thinking? Will Alice stay a part of Anna's life? Ross, David, Phillip . . . what is next for them? All these characters are living in my thoughts, even now.

TIPTON is a story of intersecting lives and of many different outsiders coming together to make a family of their own. Hilary Holladay touches on issues that we care about today through the lens of the 1930s: race, class, sexual orientation, country, . . . and we see her characters reach across the lines society draws as they dare to be who they are.

Who would have thought that Rapidan VA would become a home for such a cast of characters?

[Nancy Luebke · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was a nice read that centered for the most part, around Alice. It seemed to raise a lot of questions about different things during a 7 year span. However, I felt it left the main question unanswered and the major situation unresolved. I felt totally let down at the end of the book.

[Mariah Nelson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sweet story of orphanage residents and staff and the family they choose to deliberately create many years later.