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Book Summary and Reviews of Home Schooling by Carol Windley

Home Schooling by Carol Windley

Home Schooling

Stories

by Carol Windley

  • Critics' Consensus:
  • Published:
  • Feb 2009, 224 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

The Giller Prize-nominated Home Schooling marks the American debut of a masterful, award-winning storyteller. Set against the moody landscape of Vancouver Island and the thrumming cities of the Pacific Northwest, Carol Windley's stories uncover the hidden freight of families: in the title story, two sisters contend with their idealistic father’s sudden inability to provide for their family, and with their attraction to the same boy; in “What Saffi Knows,” a mother returns to a moment in her past when she held the knowledge that might have saved another child, but not the language with which to convey it; and in “Family in Black,” a young woman’s world is permanently changed when her mother abandons her father for a man who embodies everything her mother taught her to despise. Families dissolve and reform in new, startling configurations: ghosts appear, the past intrudes and overwhelms the present, familiar terrain takes on a hostile aspect, and happiness depends on unlikely alliances.

With the invisibly perfect craftsmanship of Alice Munro, and the flesh-and-blood sense of place of Annie Proulx, Windley carves out territory all her own in these stories, each one a richly imagined world that will stay with readers for a long time.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"Windley keeps readers' attention with a fast pace and an eye for fresh details that make her efficient, achingly human dramas absorbing and sympathetic." - Publishers Weekly.

"Reading Windley can be a mesmerizing experience; recommended for public and academic libraries." - Library Journal.

"This slim volume gives every indication that [comparisons to Alice Munro] are warranted. Beautifully crafted and devoid of sentimentality." - Kirkus Reviews.

This information about Home Schooling was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

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More Information

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More Recommendations

Readers Also Browsed . . .

more short stories...

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