Featherstone

by Kirsty Gunn

Kirsty Gunn's spellbinding third novel is a portrait of the small town of Featherstone and the interior lives of its inhabitants. Over the course of one weekend, years after the beautiful and spirited Francie Johanssen fled town, rumors of her return stir memories that threaten to disrupt the community.

Gunn reveals how Francie's absence continues to shape the subconscious longings, hopes, and dreams of those she left behind, including Margaret, the local hotel's promiscuous bartender; Mary Susan, a troubled and rebellious teenager who wants to get out of town as soon as she can; Francie's elderly uncle Sonny; Harland, the faithless minister; and Kate, his despondent wife. Affected most of all, perhaps, is Ray, Francie's old high school boyfriend who has never been able to let go of her.

Genres: Fiction, Literary Fiction

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

Kirsty Gunn was born in 1960 in New Zealand and educated at Queen Margaret College and Victoria University, Wellington, and at Oxford, where she completed an M.Phil. After moving to London she worked as a freelance journalist.

Her fiction includes the acclaimed Rain (1994), the story of an adolescent girl and the break-up of her family, for which she won a London Arts Board Literature Award; The Keepsake (1997), the fragmented narrative of a young woman recalling painful memories; and Featherstone (2002), a story concerned with love in all its variety. Her short stories have been included in many anthologies including The Junky's Christmas and Other Yuletide Stories (1994) and The Faber Book of Contemporary Stories about Childhood (1997).

She is also author of This Place You Return To Is Home (1999), a collection of short stories, and in 2001 she was awarded a Scottish Arts Council Writer's Bursary. Her latest books are The Boy and the Sea (2006), winner of the 2007 Sundial Scottish Arts Council Book of the Year Award; and 44 Things (2007), a book of personal reflections over the course of one year.

Kirsty Gunn lives in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Reviews

[Ruth · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's quite a strange book, this one. The writing has beautiful sections but on the whole I found the story quite confusing, I definitely had to concentrate hard while reading it. Interesting though.

[Graham · Rating 4 out of 5]

You're driving, and you need a sweet; one of those sweets that has been reposing in the car forever, waiting for you, just waiting. For you. And when it's unwrapped, the crinkle of plastic wrapper sets your mind back to when you were five, and you were in the car, with your family, on holiday. And as the road rushes past today, you are both here and there; the cars going past you and in front of you. And you have become the one in control. You have the wheel that decides where you are going, and the destination is not in mum's head, or dad's, but yours. And yours alone.
Featherstone has poetry and lyricism, and is more William Turner than pointillism, great swirls of sentences that cast a web over your senses, drawing you further into the mystery of the story.
I really enjoyed this book, except.... Except, like Blake's rose it has a worm. And the worm is the relationship between Mary Susan and Ray, and that 'was it rape or not', and whether Ray gets his just desserts at the end. Sonny's apparent omniscience of the affair, his thoughtful direction of Harland (yes that name made me feel a bit weird!) to redeem Ray and therefore to rejoin himself back to his wife was another odd note.
So, only four stars. Love the writing, but some elements of plot jarred.

[Sharon · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is shockenly poor. I got to page 60 of this book & had to give up. I found it confusing & all over the place & after 60 pages you'd think you be conecting with the characters but i'm afraid i didn't. poor

[Elaine Robinson LaBar · Rating 1 out of 5]

I did not understand this book. Many strange people doing many strange things, none of which made much sense to me. Did Francie really return to the town or did she not, was she just a figment of everyone`s imagination and why did Ray Weldon do what he did to Mary Susan, for no apparent reason I could fathom. Whole pages, indeed chapters full of poetic, but sometimes dull, descriptive turns of phrase, but I kept waiting for something, anything to happen and when it finally did, it was something so heinous...well you get the picture. Would not recommend this book to anyone, hence it is being donated to the next local book sale.

[Greta · Rating 3 out of 5]

After our brief, but pleasant visit to Scotland, I sought out stories about the people who live there. Featherstone may be a typical small town of Scots, people are people no matter where they are. And yet, there is a bit of the supernatural at work in this tale, perhaps that is also a feature of telling a story about small village life.

[Aneres · Rating 1 out of 5]

I would not recommend anyone to read this book. I tried to be positive and read it till the last page but then I realised how stupid I was wasting my time on something so absurd. No real characters no real stories and the ending is just .. Impossible. Really upsetting.

[Helen Reavy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'd rate this book as somewhere between a 3 and a 4. I really enjoyed reading it, but am really not sure about how much I understood what was going on.

[leahtheliterary · Rating 1 out of 5]

TRIGGER WARNING S***** ASSAULT

This book is quite literally the worst book I've ever read. It seems as though the author was trying to inject descriptive imagery into every sentence but to me it read as excessive and cumbersome.

SPOILER one of the male characters is obsessed with a woman who left town and thinks he is seeing her around town again. He's not. He ends up RAPING A CHILD because he thinks this kid is the woman. -_-

The author then appears to downplay the devastation of such a thing happening by having the young girl who was raped almost immediately come to the conclusion that just because something like that happens to you that it doesn't have to change you. WHAT??

THEN the man goes off into the woods and cuts his hands and is obviously having a mental crisis. He is rescued and WELCOMED BACK INTO THE CHURCH AND TOWN. HELLO RAPE APOLOGISTS.

0 stars. Literally threw the book away so no one else would ever read it.

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm dissappointed.

As usual, Gunn's prose is dazling and intoxicating. Addicting, even.

I got very comfortable in this book, and I think I'd like to go back.

But, near the end, she gets in the way. Her voice intrudes, like a boom mike or a dolly track that accidently got into frame in a movie and was never edited out.

I can read, Kirsty. I can feel. I can think. Please don't hit me over the head with your metaphores and symbolism. Let me work that out on my own, for that's what makes reading fun.

Most of this book was fun. Inspiring even. But it's sad, because it's a pretty good book that, with some help, could have been a great book.

I learned a lot, and I won't forget it.

[sisterimapoet · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like Kirsty Gunn. She deserves more attention. I have been impressed by all of her novels and eagerly wait to see what she does next.

Set within one village over the course of a long weekend we see the impact on various lives by the supposed return of a long lost girl. Her reappearance draws attention to the cracks within many lives. And slowly but surely those cracks widen.

A great sense of growing tension throughout. But writing in collect and eloquent prose. I wanted to know what would happen, but never at the expense of rushing these poetic and crafted lines.

[Lorna · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think I liked it... Atmospheric, I like Kirsty Gunn's style of writing, and the plot is very simple but powerful. The ending though, doesn't ring true. I know it's a redemption novel - nothing is so bad we can't find redemption, it's never too late - but... I was left feeling sad for the wasted lives of the Harlands, and disappointed that Ray is almost rewarded, with a new relationship with Margaret.

[Danielle Burns · Rating 5 out of 5]

Picked this book up again 10 years after my initial read and from the very first page, I was hooked. The story is quirky but realistic, the characters unique yet relatable and the small town setting so well described that the reader is instantly transported. Altogether, Gunn’s writing is absolutely fabulous and I now need to read everything she’s written!

[Sally Whitehead · Rating 3 out of 5]

Atmospherically set in a timelessly small "could be anywhere" town "Featherstone" is an interesting 'ensemble' piece. With a cast of, admittedly fairly bleak, 'everyman' characters it is in turn an achingly familiar meditation on the mundanity of life yet also hauntingly metaphysical.

A good read for sure but ultimately a little too overtly lyrical for my gritty 'kitchen sink' tastes.

[Betty · Rating 1 out of 5]

I abandoned this after the first 90 pages. Cloyingly overwritten, with very little differentiation between the characters- they all have these endless internal monologues which seem to go nowhere. Maybe Gunn should stick to poetry.

[Mew · Rating 4 out of 5]

odd...atmospheric...like a headache

[Alexia]

I can't get into it...

[Southern Flower · Rating 1 out of 5]

Weird pseudo-spiritual ramblings that are trying too hard - one of the wort books I have read.

[Kathryn · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is AWFUL.

[Jordi Ciuraneta Boyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

The way that she describe the town and it’s people it’s pure poetry. A little bit confusing with the characters, but obviously intended.
A book to read with a pencil on the hand. FANTASTIC!!!