We Read In the Fall as a Summer Read

I feel as though I have been living in Vermont for the last few months...maybe years! Yuht.

BEFORE THE MEETING:
So far, I am more impressed with In the Fall, by Jeffrey Lent, than I have been by a book in a long while...well, since I read the last Harry Potter book over my vacation... Not to say that this book is anything like a Harry Potter book, and not to have any of you who have no taste for Harry Potter to think that this book may not be good because someone who likes Harry Potter likes this book!

AFTER THE MEETING:
Most of those who joined us on Monday for our discussion had read In the Fall. I guess if you read my email messages, you know I was impressed with this book! Most everyone enjoyed the book. A few were as excited about it as I was. One or two had some negative comments. Everyone found it a challenging but worthwhile read. We had a long discussion, postulating about why there were large chunks of years left out of the narrative even when the events leading up to those lacunae were written in great detail. We didn't decide for sure whether the midwife was black. Color was an interesting theme in the book, including the author's treatment of individuals with minimal direct attention to each person's color but major effects on the people's lives of their shade of skin, discussion of the blacks in the South, and the prejudice among Northeners. Some liked the writing style and felt it matched the characters and added to the feeling of being there at that time among those people. Others found the style hard to read and uneven. A theme of the book someone noticed was a dichotomy between close relationships and isolation that seemed to be present in all of the main characters' lives. Is it that way in all our lives?