The Thin Place

by Kathryn Davis

The prize-winning author of Versailles tells the story of a small New England village unsettled by a young girls unearthly gift. In Varennes, a town near the Canadian border, three girls come across the body of a dead man on the local lakes beach. Two of them run to get help, but twelve-year-old Mees Kipp stays with the body and somehow, inexplicably, brings it back to life. Her mysterious gift is at the center of this haunting and transcendent novel.

The Thin Place is the story of these girls, their town, and the worldly and otherworldly forces that come into play there over one summer. Writing at the peak of her powers, Kathryn Davis draws on commonplace forms--police blotters, garden almanacs, Sunday sermons, horoscopes, and diaries--to convey the rich rhythms of life in Varennes. From the ladies in the old-folks home to trappers, lawyers, teachers, ministers, drug addictseven the dogs and cats, beavers and bearsshe peoples this novel with astonishingly vivid beings. The extraordinary comes to visit an ordinary town.

Genres: Fiction, Fantasy, Magical Realism, Literary Fiction, Contemporary, Novels, American

277 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Kathryn Davis is an award-winning American novelist.

Davis has taught at Skidmore College, and is now senior fiction writer in the Writing Program in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.

She is a recipient of the Kafka Prize, the Morton Dauwen Zabel Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1999, a 2000 Guggenheim Fellowship, and a Lannan Literary Award for Fiction in 2006.

Davis lives in Montpelier, Vermont, with her husband, the novelist and essayist Eric Zencey.

Reviews

[Mir · Rating 2 out of 5]

I doubt I will actually like this, but it has as a cover a painting I like and have forgotten the artist of, so I will have to find it and write that down.

----

Update: The cover image is "Dreamland" by Bo Bartlett, and although I am not finishing the book it the antithesis of what that cover led me to expect. See the quirky but attractive people passing, presumably to or through or from the titular "thin place" where "the membrane separating this world from the spirit world is almost nonexistent"? Those people are not in this story. Our characters are ordinary and realistic small-town folks, teachers and students, married couples and old ladies in nursing homes. Their lives, behavior, and appearances are nothing to remark on. Neither are their looks: most of the descriptions focus on whether characters are or are not attractive, and most of them aren't. Nothing special happens. They eat dinners and clean and have the usual sort of domestic problems. Possibly a teen girl, Mees, brings a dead man back to life, or maybe he wasn't dead at all and just woke up when she touched his face; she and her friends saw him lying on the beach (at a normal time, in shorts) and decided he was dead, but they didn't shake him or take his pulse.

I stopped at page 60, maybe some more outre things happen later. But since I'm not enjoying this I'm quitting. Small town life of normal folks isn't my bag, and I don't care for her writing, although isn't bad, just not to my taste. Arty in a writing-program sort of way, if you like that kind of style.

[Cameron · Rating 2 out of 5]

On the back jacket of Kathryn Davis' The Thin Place—in the area reserved for praise from critics, other authors, or any distant celebrity—is a quote from a Kirkus review. Though I don't have the actually words in front of me, if I remember right, it said "Davis, God bless her, assumes that her readers are intelligent and interested in what they are reading." End quote. I didn't know quite how I felt about that. I feel I am somewhat intelligent and that I do like to be interested in what I am reading. It seems like something you should be able to say about most authors. Why would should need the blessings of deity to be assuming that of her readers? Why was this reviewer saying this? What could it mean.

Then I read the book, and found out what he meant.

This book is a tough one to read. Not because of flowery prose or mind-bending subject matter. But it is difficult because it meanders from place to place and from character to character. It doesn't bother introducing the people in the narrative properly. It just treats you as a citizen of the northeastern town of the plot. It even makes you privy to police scanner lists and newspaper snippets and other menagerie of meaninglessness. I have read the book and I think I barely knew about one of the characters. Don't ask me her last name though. I was last nearly the entire time.

I knew it all meant something. But I found myself quickly becoming disinterested in what I was reading. I also felt like what I was reading seemed like it was excellent writing. It seemed that I should be liking it—that I should be intelligent enough to understand it.

So, I hate to say it, but I think the author assumed too much about me. Guess it's time to go back to James Patterson.

[Jennifer Hudak · Rating 5 out of 5]

An odd, beautiful book. It's different from anything else I've ever read. In examining the course of a single summer in a small New England town, it weaves together questions about consciousness (human, animal, even plant), social interactions, the connection between humans and the natural world, the potential for catastrophe (both human-made and natural), divine intervention, and the beauty and joy found in tiny, seemingly insignificant things. "The thin place" is an expression that refers to places in the world where the membrane separating our existence from the spirit world is very thin, allowing leakage between the two. This is not a quick read, but I feel changed after having read it.

[Erin · Rating 5 out of 5]

You want a traditional novel? Look elsewhere. I love novels that act like novels as much as the next person, but I also loved this. It does not act like a novel. Well it does insofar as it's prose, with transitions, and paragraphs. But y'all, when you read this book, know that you don't NEED to remember any of the character's names. The town is the protagonist. Not everyone will love this. But you'll love it more if you approach it with an open mind. You get the perspectives of moose and beaver and people who seek connection. You get a brief history of the town starting before the glaciers. Rocks are subtle characters. It's gorgeous, profound, and resonating. I hope you read it.

[Shannon · Rating 1 out of 5]

What a terrible book. I have a "100 Page Rule," where if I don't care about what will happen by one hundred pages into the book, I don't finish the book. I finished this book anyway, but it wouldn't have made a 200 page rule because I never managed to care about any of the characters in the book.

The final 15 pages almost earned this book two stars because it did get a little bit interesting, but since the definition of 2 stars is "it was OK" versus 1 star "didn't like it", I really had to go with one star.

The main reason I didn't like this book was I felt the author was really overreaching to do something new and inventive, to the complete detriment of the narrative. There were subtle hints that the author actually had something worth saying, but they were so deeply buried in the bizarre narrative and elaborate language, who cared enough to dive deep enough to find them?

The cluttered cast meant I could never keep the characters straight in my mind, so I was continually confused about who was doing what and how that was supposed to relate to the overarching narrative. Can you tell I didn't like this book?

[Doug Bradshaw · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading the other reviews, I feel like a loser in that the book didn't work well for me. Somehow, I missed the genius and magic that others seemed to find and savor. The book is very fragmented, goes from the inner thoughts of animals (which to me were merely human's thoughts about what animals may be thinking versus what they are really thinking) to mundane observations about ordinary life that were rather boring and mostly unhelpful to me: An elderly 90 year old women with a son in his 60s who is still trying to date the right women, a young girl who can heal, beavers who are being mistreated, etc. The author tries to get graphic about certain sexual behavior and thoughts and yet to me, it was all very restrained and ultra conservative. A conservative trying to be shocking and yet retaining conservatism.

Furthermore, the constant thread of various religious meanings and interpretations didn't do much for me either as we float in and out of passages from the New Testament that deal with various things happening in today's world.

I would much prefer that she tell a great story in a less ethereal and more concrete way.

[Margaret · Rating 4 out of 5]

Because a friend recently mentioned this book, I decided to reread it. It is definitely odd, but if one reads a bit more slowly and is willing "to suspend disbelief," it pops out as an interesting take on everything. That's because everything acts as a character, that is, everything has a consciousness of one sort or another--even tree lichens speak. Ordinary ideas of life and death are stretched as well. If one can go along with such things, The Thin Place is full of life always and laughter at times. I'm glad I read it again, and I am looking out for other Kathryn Davis titles.

[Whitney · Rating 3 out of 5]

Poetic. Not-too lengthy. The plot (is there a plot?) shows a cluster of people who are all sad in one way or another. A handful of deaths. Dream-like. Readers see the thoughts of pets too.

The used copy I bought helpfully had all the main characters' names highlighted throughout the first few chapters, which jogs the memory nicely. Like in real life. Some characters in this book aren't too memorable. Not many are beautiful. Most have ugly aspects.

Conveniently, most characters come together at the most tense point because they all attend the same church.

Most lives are unfulfilled.

[Maura Heaphy Dutton · Rating 5 out of 5]

British readers will know what I mean when I say that this is a Marmite book. Like the notorious British savoury spread, you either love it or you hate it.

I love this book. (Marmite, too. Not sure if that means anything ...) I love the beautiful prose, and sharp descriptions. I love the omniscient point of view, in which (among others, and in no particular order) people, dogs, beavers, carp, a moose and (memorably) lichen on a stone are given their say. I love the sharp insights into human nature. I love the slow burn. I love the misdirection.

For what it's worth, this is one that I will cheerfully read again, and again and again. Don't know about you. What do you think of Marmite?

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

The premise of the story has been summarized by other reviewers, so I won't take the time to do it here, but I will note that I bought this book after reading a review, thinking that it was going to be more focused on the supernatural, the review leading me to think that the focus was the "thin place," the division between this world and the next that is thinner in Varennes than in other places. I envisioned ghosts or magical realism, of sorts. In short, this book was not what I expected.

That being said, there is an element of the supernatural in this book, but only one element. The whole of the book is based firmly and viscerally in reality. Davis has an extremely keen ability at description and fluid prose, one of the best I've read, and I often found myself delighted by the aptness of her descriptions, putting into words ideas that have fleetingly crossed my mind (like the description of dogs' heads smelling of popcorn).

Other reviewers, and friends of mine that have read the book, have found it confusing, or difficult to stick with. I disagree - although there are many characters, and the prose deviates regularly from the plot (i.e., the daily lives of the town's residents, and how their paths ultimately cross) to describe the thoughts of beavers, moose, lichen, or to meditate on the creation of the world, or to jump back to medieval times to explore events of the Bible - it was easy to form a picture of the place, to differentiate the characters, and to understand the prevailing themes of interconnectedness and transience.

For some, this will be the story of a town and its residents. For others, this will be a religious novel, while others will find it a philosophical journey. Whatever the book is to each reader, I know that it will be unlike anything you have read before, and you will get something out of it, IF you open your mind and let yourself be swept away with the current of the story.

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a book to savor, which is another way of saying that it's taking me a surprisingly long time to finish for a book that is so enjoyable and so slender. Everything in this book, from the people to the cats to the corn, is alive, at least somewhat sentient, and very opinionated. I guess my only complaint is that she alludes to so many stories and plot lines, but hasn't really delved into many of them with much depth, which leaves me wanting more.

*Updated upon finishing*
I have to concur with Chris on the ending of the book, which cost it a star. It didn't really have an inevitable feel, nor was it especially satisfying. However, I still thought it was a great read. I'll check out more from her.

[Bookslut · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic. This book reminded me of The Stone Diaries in both its spare writing style and the way I took to it immediately. Often I have to digest for a while whether a book makes it onto my favorite shelves, and I weigh if it stands the test of time or not, but those two books earned an immediate place. There is a scene where a bald mentally ill woman yells Cocksucker! in church (and later becomes the lead soprano), and I felt like I'd been waiting to read this book all my life. The author says a lot by saying a little, and is very funny, and reveals just enough. There's nothing overstated, and the book is ended well enough to satisfy the reader without tying it up so neatly it feels contrived. I was worried it was heading for one of those endings that left way too many things unresolved on the table and the reader feeling mean, but she skirted that handily. I've read a couple of reviews that said the magical realism or mysticism (I don't know how you'd exactly categorize it) element was unfairly overrepresented in the synopsis, and that is maybe true. The cover art is really beautiful and unique, the title is interesting, and I cannot wait to read more books by Kathryn Davis. She also happens to live in St. Louis.

[Carolyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you read Bookslut [in 2007, that is], you've already heard about this. It's really a magical book and I really loved it. So many different people's voices are heard, and all ring true. So many different takes on the same events. So many forces at play in this world, good and bad. So many ways things could go. I expect this will win a lot of awards this year. I suggest you read it.

[GZ · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm trying to figure out how exactly to describe this book. The writing was at times poetic and lyrical, at other times as direct and austere as a Hemingway sentence. The subject matter was vast and sweeping at times, and quotidian at others. The whole thing was a sort of two-sided coin. The takeaway, for me: Time marches on. The world spins. The cosmos expands. And little dramas everywhere. And miracles. Maybe. The more you pull at the thread of this novel, the more it unravels. Who was the narrator? God? If so, not one who only celebrates the glory of man, but all living creatures and inanimate matter as well. It reshapes the idea of nature, or begs us to question the nature of it. There is no good. There is no bad. But in this human's opinion. This was a good book. But maybe, a book for readers. The more I think about it, the higher I want to rate it.

[Christopher]

Didn’t think this was as good as Duplex—but it is still has that Kathryn Davis voice.

[Christa · Rating 5 out of 5]

(Reread) I no longer live by a library so I am rereading favorites in my personal library. The writing in this novel always draws me in. I think Davis is a brilliant wordsmith.

[Zoe Brooks · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an interesting read and reminded me of Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury. Like Bradbury's novel this is a magic realist account of life in small town over a short period of time. Don't let the description fool you: this novel has a slow and gentle start and it isn't until the last few chapters that life in the town is threatened.

Davis weaves a tapestry made up of many threads. Not only does this mean the portrayal of the, sometimes mundane, daily lives of the many residents, but also the lives of animals (local dogs, cats, a beaver, moose) and even lichen. These portrayals are imaginative and insightful. We see the town through the eyes of a dog, and also smell it: Many deer beds and some human pee in a bush and also birds in trees and lots of squirrels too high to eat and then a house. Never a good idea to go too near a house unless you knew the person put out suet.

At other times Davis steps out of the present day, to a community disaster in the 19th century, which one feels running as a dark current under the local lake. And sometimes she describes the area before human habitation or even as the world was created. On several occasions she talks about Julian of Norwich, and clearly the medieval Christian mystic has influenced Davis' approach.

These approaches, as much as Mees' gift for raising the dead, are magic realist, but magic realist in the sense of Roh's definition.

There will be many readers who will find this book boring and/or confusing. There are so many characters that one is inclined to forget who is who. I at one point had read the first page of a chapter about a character, Margaret, before I remembered that Margaret was a dog! There will be others, myself included, who felt the sudden shift to action and even violence at the end of the book to be jarring.

So is this poetic book worthy of the comparison with Bradbury's? Despite its quality, I don't think it is in the same league. Bradbury's book may have portrayed a community, but the world was seen through the eyes of a ten-year old boy and that helped provide focus. The Thin Place lacks a centre. Maybe that is what Davis intended - after all it is world of diaphanous layers - but I for one wanted more solidity.

This review first appeared on the Magic Realism Books blog - http://magic-realism-books.blogspot.com

[lethe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quote:

Suppose there are many universes, each one called into being at the slightest touch, an action no stronger than a flower? Suppose our galaxy and all the others, instead of drifting more and more slowly, reluctantly even, away from one another, with heavy hearts and a lingering backward glance, are instead speeding up, as if the process isn't a long drawn-out endgame but an excited rush toward something? As if the end itself could be the exciting goal, even if that something is the complete extinction of space and time?
Would there be anything left over? (p. 219)

Edit 18 June 2022: adding my text updates under the spoiler tag in case they are disappeared:

September 14, 2020 – page 150
51.55% "Janet was a youngster ― she hadn't turned eighty yet ― and due to the drop of Cherokee blood she'd received from her renegade mother's side of the family tree, she possessed that truly excellent bone structure without which the aging facial skin falls into folds like a deflated parachute. (p. 77-78)"
September 20, 2020 – page 275
94.5% "the organdy curtains moving in that enchanted, heart-wrenching way of curtains in a summer breeze (p. 222)
Women trained men to have an eye for beauty, and then when the women stopped being beautiful, the well-trained men had to find their beauty elsewhere. (p. 242)"

[Jane C. · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book appears to take place in New Hampshire: we have a route 10, an Upper Valley region, and views east to Mt. Washington. It's also a place that's quiet and slow enough that people feel they can be closer to nature, and maybe in some way the spiritual world.

Especially in the beginning there were some beautifully written paragraphs, like Andrea thinking about how upset her husband gets and concludes that it's hard to be married to a romantic. But just when the writing got into a plot or a character, it dropped abruptly, wandering into some elusive essay on something incomprehensible like geologic time. Or alternately presenting me with a banal list like a police log.

I felt that the author didn't give me the chance to like the book. There were times I reread a sentence several times and still didn't know what the author was talking about. There wasn't a single character that I got to know enough to care about.

Whoever wrote the book jacket went over the top. Mees bringing someone back to life was something out of a B Sci-Fi movie, not "otherworldy". The pageant wasn't surprising. The cover art was like the image in a dream that makes you feel uncomfortable when you wake up.

[Morgan · Rating 3 out of 5]

A puzzle of a novel. I think I like it--not sure yet. No, I'm sure, I am lukewarm about it. Expected more emphasis on the "thin place" where the boundaries between people living and desd become opaque, thinner.

I'm 3/4's through and still only mildly interested. I would prefer that the author choose one main character (MEES?) and follow her, with many asides for the outlook of the others --human and animal--and more emphasis on plot advancement. I have not been able to engage with or care about anyone deeply, and for me this is a kiss-off sign, tells me to set the book down and go on to something that captures me. In one way, Davis attempts to capture the whole world of this town in summer, but I think she spread herself too thin so it becomes "the human story" and "the plant and animal story", too universal, not character or plot-specific enough (for me).

EVEN SO: I know many consider her gifted. God, I wish I could write as well as she does--some of her character's insights and outlooks are luminous.

[Terry · Rating 5 out of 5]

It feels at times like a pastiche of vignettes strung together by three girls walking, an interesting conceit. But there's more to this function at the junction than Johnny and his fiddle. "Who’s interested in the beaver family story, except, possibly, beavers? God?" Well, I thought, what about Thornton W Burgess's The Adventures of Paddy the Beaver that entranced me as a child? this novel doesn't have all the answers but we aren't supposed to expect that of fiction, are we. I mean, I still need to figure out the place in the kingdom fitted out for the calico cats and the piebalds.

[Cheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not what I expected, and not difficult. All the pieces of the jigsaw do fit together to make a provocative picture. It's not the picture on the cover, though. One tip, if you do feel intimidated - make notes to keep track of the different characters, and try to read it in big chunks. Also, enjoy it for what it is, a collection of images and ideas, not a plot-driven package. Life is messy and sometimes 'stories' should be, too. Recommended if you're in the mood for something different.

[Daniel Schulof · Rating 5 out of 5]

Davis totally blows me away. Genius-level intellect, totally unique and original style. How is she not one of America’s best-loved writers? She is a fucking monster. And not only does her style feel 100x more like life than “realism,” but it’s a better vehicle for playing with big philosophical issues too. This should be canon.

[John Lamb · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the Toni Morrison & Virginia Woolf mode of stream-0f-consciousness writing. Like dipping into pool of thoughts and dreams. Surreal, mesmerizing.

[Lungstrum Smalls · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book becomes gradually less inscrutable over time, not just because you come to know the characters but also because the plot coalesces in a more legible manner. That’s just a note to readers who are ready to give up after 10 pages. But even if this book had remained so flighty and strange throughout, I would have loved it. Davis combines the quotidian and the philosophical—the mind and the flesh, the high and the low—better than almost anyone else. And she takes the lives and perspectives of animals seriously. It’s a strange and meandering and smart and gorgeous novel. 5 stars, though I was left with a few questions about how it all came together… why throw in this last minute villain? Despite Davis’ bravery when it comes to looking into the void, she seems to have some fear of ruffians with radical ideas, preferring instead precocious girls, odd church ladies, and rodents. Fair enough!

[dolly · Rating 4 out of 5]

not sure how i feel about that ending

[Greta · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel is masterfully woven, so much so that I feel after finishing it as though I this is only one of several readings necessary to even begin to work toward catching, let alone understanding all of its nuances and complexities. The characters of Mees, Billie, and Helen-- and also Piet, are my favorites and I wish I could have spent a bit more time with them. The animal characters, Margaret and Gigi in particular, are also beautifully done! The story made me think a lot abouot POV for this very reason-- one gets snatches of so many voices and views, but also this elusive narrator that one never quite knows from where or whom it's coming.

This is the first time that I've read a book by Kathryn Davis and I'm looking forward to exploring more of her work--her command of language and intuitive sense of humanity, not to mention her quirky, yet profound noticings about the nature of reality and the world around us, are incredibly unique.

some quotes to entice you into reading this...

"If the earth is just a ball, no one place on it is any more important than another. Human time is much to thin to be discerned. The slow steady march of geologic time is punctuated with catastrophes." -72

"Space and time are made out of strings the universe conceived when it was still a baby, little and fierce. The strings, releasing even smaller strings, which were the new dimensions, humming, humming, humming. If a human being had been there to hear that music, it would have killed him. Eventually the strings made waves, some smaller than the smallest thing we've discovered so far, some greater than the distance between our world and the farthest star..." -151

"Humans can't live without projects." -158

AND MY FAVORITE

"Of course we have free will, but not as much as we think we have. Otherwise we wouldn't also have dreams; we wouldn't need them." -268

[Darlene · Rating 3 out of 5]

The font on this library hardback is too small. I made it through the first chapter and it looks to be a good book. Put in a request for the large-print or audio version at the library. Requested that it be available to Kindle at Amazon. Hopefully I can try this again someday.
***
Now, I have not only the large print hard cover edition from the library but I bought the Audible version with Shelly Frasier as narrator. The font on the hardback is larger but the space between lines and lack of paragraph spaces still make this a hard read for me. So I listened more than read. Shelly has a nice voice and reads the story as I feel I would have in my head. It is a pleasant book. A pleasant story. But for the most part I feel I have lived a life similar to this having lived in two small towns and been a member of numerous churches. Peyton Place. Gossip city. Mostly where I lost my hope for human kind.

I felt nothing for the characters. I felt no growth. I did like the dog and the cat. But felt Christopher Moore did a better job with the inner thoughts of a dog in The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove. So the dog brought up the star rating to two stars.

I had hope. I kept waiting for the point. Then I started waiting for the death of the people as it seemed that was where the author was determined to go.

But my decision to raise this to three stars is the poetic prose. Kathryn Davis' descriptions are marvelous. I suppose if this were one of the only books in a cabin in the woods this would be great to read. With 3,000 books on my Kindle (or actually on my Calibre) to read this--well, I am glad to be on to some other read.

[Jen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Things I liked about this book:
1. The language. I read a reveiw that compared Davis' style to a river flowing over the page, moving from thought to thought like a camera focusing in on each element in a scene one at a time (or something like that). I think that's a great description of how Davis plays with language.

2. I liked how she dropped pieces of the story one kernel at a time, pages apart, mentioning events like you already knew about them, so that they weren't really fully explained and you had to infer what had happened in the past.


Things I didn't like about this book:
1. The sheer number of characters who were hard to keep straight (see #2 above). And I didn't connect with any of them, except maybe Helen or Lorna.

2. The ending. Where did that come from?

3. I consider myself a fairly intelligent person, but there were several times in this book where I didn't understand why things were included or what Davis meant by a particular line. For example, during the school play when Lorna imagines everyone's future, is that really their future, or is she making it up, or does it not matter? And what was the point of the Inez Fair story? And what was it suppposed to mean when Helen told the New Jersey woman to throw sewing away? I was left frustrated.

3.

[Kevin Lawrence · Rating 3 out of 5]

Because this book came recommended by a valued friend [thanks for the recommendation, Michael!], I very much wanted to be blown-away by this book and so perhaps I was demanding too much from my first exposure to Kathryn Davis. I found it very difficult to get a good grasp on how to navigate too deeply into the novel until about 2/3rds into the book. Davis has a kaleidoscopic way of writing where her viewpoint will very suddenly collapse and reorganize itself into not just different characters' viewpoints, but also geologic/animal/temporal viewpoints that can be quite unexpected but also disorientating. She always writes with a very assured tone and there is no denying that individual sentences, paragraphs, and chapters are very carefully crafted and quite beautiful. I sometimes felt, however, that a critical piece of information was deliberately being withheld that the author and her characters were clearly aware of, but I as a reader was being denied. By the end of the book, things do come together and the book has a very strong final lap, but getting there was a challenge for me. I will likely read another novel by Davis (The Duplex) in the hopes of getting a better feel for her undeniable talent.