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Reviews
Below you will find reviews for:
Reviews of The Girl from Charnelle
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of The Girl from Charnelle will appear here as they are published. Please check
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- 2007 Willa Award Winner for Contemporary Fiction
Awarded annually for outstanding literature featuring women's stories set in the West, the WILLA Awards are chosen by a distinguished panel of twenty-one professional librarians. K. L. Cook's novel wins the top prize for contemporary fiction.
- 2006 Southwest Books of the Year
Cook...has written a pitch-perfect coming-of-age novel set in a small Texas Panhandle town during the waning days of the Eisenhower administration.... With remarkable insight and sensibility, Cook lays bare the cords of love and loss, yearning and redemption, that surround the human heart. This is a spellbinding read. ~Bruce Dinges
- Harper Collins "First Look" Reader Reviews
This book was completely compelling; impossible to put down. Laura's blooming relationship with John was dangerously erotic. The love scenes were told with such remembrance of what it is like to be sixteen and introduced to sexual awakening. The seduction is complete. Not only Laura's, but the reader's. Right from the beginning this book grabs you. It's 'Lolita' told through the eyes of the young girl seduced by the older man. It's riveting. It's as fluid as the era it presents. It's one of those good books that you always hope you'll find when you sit down by the fire and turn to the first page. — Juliann (Hamilton, OH).... To read all of the "First Look" Reader Reviews for the novel, click the title at the top of this section.
- The Houston Chronicle
The ghost of the absent mother hovers over the narrative like a mystery waiting to be solved and adds frisson to the actions and motives of the daughter. A tragic accident and a blistering confrontation with the aggrieved wife make this more than a coming-of-age novel of a young girl; rather, it is the record of the traumatic explosion of a childhood into pain and bittersweet, adult knowledge.... It's often said that the ultimate test of a male novelist lies in his ability to faithfully and compellingly portray the inner, emotional life of a woman and that only the greats like Tolstoy, Flaubert and James can pull it off. Cook pulls it off admirably. His portrait of Laura is compelling, deft, delicate and as gritty and honest as a West Texas sandstorm. The language throughout is fresh, accurate and literate without being pretentious. This is a marvelously written and well-paced, deeply affecting first novel that ought to bring the writer several more awards. That he is a Texan writing tellingly about other Texans ought to send all those who care about our nascent state literature rushing to the bookstores. ~Daniel Rifenburgh
- Historical Novel Society (Editor's Choice Selection)
Cook effectively immerses his audience in the 1960s Texas Panhandle, describing the effect of historical events on his characters and using elements of the terrain to enhance his story: the female characters’ interest in all things Jackie, the frustration of Texans when the young Jack Kennedy is running for president instead of Texas’ own LBJ, and the relief of swimming in the cool waters of Lake Meredith. The book is fast-paced for an introspective novel, and the complex feelings of the characters make it hard to put down. It is difficult to avoid the natural discomfort felt when a 30-year-old man is having an affair with a minor, but this discomfort enhances the reader’s empathy for the main character. The whole is a poignant story of a young woman who must grow up too quickly. This first novel is a literary work of art. ~Nan Curnutt
- School Library Journal (2006 Best Adult Book for High School Students)
This is a brilliant depiction of the coming of age of a sensitive protagonist who aches for new experiences, is open to new ideas, and longs for answers to family secrets, but it is more than a bildungsroman. The Texas town, its inhabitants, its climate, and the national events of the 1960s all impact Laura's story and result in emotionally charged scenes with vivid writing. ~Jackie Gropman
- Mississippi Press/Gulf Coast Live (Selected as a Best Book of the Year)
If you have ever been a little girl, if you have ever loved a little girl, you will love The Girl from Charnelle. When barely old enough for high school, Laura Tate is forced to assume the mother role for her family. She does so with all the dignity and strength a young girl can muster.... The reader will find themselves falling in love with Laura, pulling for her and hoping she's doing OK, long after the last page is read and the book is closed. This is K.L. Cook's first novel. He has written a collection of linked stories, Last Call. If the short stories have half as much insight and depth as this novel, one would be remiss not to read it as well. The Girl from Charnelle is about grace, tragedy and motherless children who assume adult roles. Themes which are all too common. Moviemakers and those who nominate novels for prizes should sit up and take notice. The Girl from Charnelle is a hit. A big hit. ~Reba J. McMellon
- Strand Books
With his debut novel The Girl from Charnelle, K.L. Cook gives his readers a gut-wrenching picture of a young woman dealing with the tormented repercussions of love.... The Girl from Charnelle is an unforgettable first novel from a strong, assured new voice in American literature.
- Entertainment Weekly
In the early-'60s Texas of Cook's resonant first novel, people don't talk much about the whys of things: why a woman suddenly walks out on her husband and five children or why her 16-year-old daughter, too wounded to grieve, enters into a clandestine affair with a married friend of the family. Soon, though, the reader recognizes the recurrent themes of motherhood and madness, the power of shame, and abandonment as a
compulsive search for self.... In disturbing scenes like one in which a mama dog kills her puppies, he adroitly reveals an average family's devastating potential for violence. ~Alanna Nash
- Library Journal (starred review)
What is the value of a secret life? This question both intrigues and haunts Laura Tate, 16 years old and already baffled by the adults around her. It is 1960, a year and a half since her mother mysteriously boarded a bus and left their small town of Charnelle, TX, and Laura still doesn't know why. It isn't until she becoms involved with a married man that she understands the power of having a secret life. As she tries to negotiate her way through her conflicting feelings of guilt and desire, she realizes that adulthood is full of paradoxes with which she's not yet ready to deal. Set against the backdrop of an emotional election and the start of a tumultuous decade, this atypical coming-of-age story from Cook considers more than a young girl's erotic and emotional awakening; it's the story of an entire generation growing up too quickly. The story may start quietly, but it's deceptively simple premise builds to a tense situation that makes this debut impossible to put down until the dramatic and realistic conclusion. Highly recommended for all public libraries.
- Booklist
Cook's debut novel drives itself into the reader's consciousness much like the sudden, violent thunderstorms that sweep across the plains of the Texas Panhandle.... Cook deftly explores the mind of this girl on the the brink of womanhood as she is drawn into the affair. Laura tentatively explores her awakening sexuality as well as her intellectual curiosity of the world beyond Charnelle while coming to terms with the inner turmoil and lingering pain of her mother's abrupt departure. Cook's depiction of the optimism of the new decade of the 1960s contrasts effectively with the bleak landscape of the arid Texas High Plains. A deeply thoughtful and honest rendering of the unanswered questions of relationships and the nature of love.
- Kirkus Reviews
"Cook's narrative lens captures it all.... The story builds to a satisfying climax, and the affair's conclusion is both surprising and definitive. But what is most impressive is Cook's fair and probing treatment of the couple's ever-evolving power dynamics.... A strong, complex story from a promising new literary voice."
- Publishers Weekly
"For his first novel, Cook revists the Tate family of Charnelle, Texas, a panhandle town, from his collection of linked short stories, Last Call... The author closely observes the affair [between Laura Tate and John Letig]: the physical pain of Laura's sexual initiation, the power shift between them once Laura understands her allure, the irresistible pull of desire.... The climactic confrontation is a welcome narrative infusion."
- Advance Praise
Read advance praise from award-winning writers Richard Russo, Joan Silber, Bret Lott, Silas House, and Hannah Tinti.
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Reviews of Last Call
- The Colorado Review
"Cook understands the intersection between coincidence and insight, and he demonstrates a flair for picking out those random and nonsensical moments—a lightning strike, the return of a vicious dog—that, when paired with a narrator's retrospect, create meaning.... Whether looking forward or back, Cook's narrators know how to read the fringes of their world: they are detectives picking up clues that confirm what they, at heart, already knew, and they use the retrospective lens to add a bit of poeticism to their otherwise stark, tough lives.... though independent of the others, each story is relevant enough to the collection's central themes that an unspoken back story lingers, and...a history is built that mimics that of the family it portrays: fragmented and drifting, yet tenuously anchored to a larger whole."
- Arts & Letters: Journal of Contemporary Culture
"Those in Last Call learn the most by witnessing their parents' follies; the realization that the parents and siblings they admire make mistakes just as they do, and their eternal struggle to cling to their faith in those they love is the thread that binds these stories together. Cook's voice is tender and graceful, often tempered with humor and a hint of sly reflection, and resonates long after the stories end."
- Rain Taxi
"The book quietly explores the question of nature versus nurture, raising concerns that tug at the reader's mind...:what constitutes a family, when you right down to it? At what point is standing by our brethren too much to ask? What are the limits of family loyalty, and why, if we're so different, are we all stuck...together?.... Quizzically touching and genuine, Cook invites us to enjoy whatever happiness we find, just as his ever-unsuspecting characters do. When we put down the book, we consider our own warped and accidental famililial connections and wonder for what strange and beautiful misfortune our children's children might blame us."
- The Harvard Review
"The end is a stunner, a memorable conclusion to a deep and haunting book."
- Southwest Book Views
"Linked short stories sometimes mask an author's inability to construct a fluid novel, but that is not true of Last Call. Not only does Cook follow the sad, contorted trajectory of one extended West Texas family, but he bounces delicately from first to third, female to male, good intentions to ruin. The emotional depth laces the discrete voices together. It is no surprise this book won the Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Fiction.... For readers not inclined to weighty—albeit beautifully written—family angst, pick up this book for the scariest encounter with a vicious dog I have ever read."
- Foreword Magazine
"In these stories, betrayal is a prominent theme, and Cook understands well that the distinction between faithlessness and opportunism is often a matter of pure chance.... In spare, unornamented prose, Cook writes about spare, unornamented people. These are stories about boozers, petty gamblers, con artists, and perpetual victims set in honky-tonks, dirt farms, and trailer parks, a world where a good night means making it home with somebody next to you—perhaps even your own spouse—without rolling the car on its roof along the way."
- Santa Fe Writers Project
"Twelve stories, some told in first person, others in third, wound me up in the Tate family and the times, places and people that claim them through it all. There's good medicine in this broken family, and that's why each story stings a little, if only when I laughed."
- The Dallas Morning News
"On a manifest level, the tales chronicle the lives of three generations of a West Texas blue-collar family. These folks and their children and their kin dream and drink and dance with their mates and fight and make love and fight some more and get separated and divorced and remarried. The implication is that this turmoil is all preordained and cannot be changed. But in this artful book...the reader is in on the secret.... Last Call does, in fact, reflect a world of hard knocks—but hope fights hard for equal time."
- The Salt Lake Tribune
"The dozen interlocking stories in K. L. Cook's Last Call are highly crafted, without an unneeded word or a scene that does not contribute to the whole, with actions, objects and dialogue that sting with significance."
- The Manhattan Mercury
"Cook gives us smooth, accomplished writing about fractured families and their coming of age...the hard way."
- Tucson Weekly
"K. L. Cook's Last Call captures the bittersweet dysfunction of the everyday like a Bob Wills tune, sweetness shining in the rhythm of Cook's carefully juxtaposed stories...Written through a series of interlocking stories and a variety of perspectives, Last Call features humor and sympathy carefully woven throughout... The stories themselves are much like the hard lives of people we know and meet daily, but Last Call has wrapped them into a brilliant puzzle..." — Julie Madsen (Read the full review online by clicking Tuscon Weekly above.)
- Library Journal
"Cook's debut short story cycle deftly chronicles the often fractious and brutal lives of the Tates of West Texas, who are indelibly scarred when the family matriarch clandestinely boards a bus one morning, never to return. . . . Although the stories are generally harsh and unforgiving, Cook transforms these attributes into a kind of grace. Recommended for most public libraries." — Kevin Greczek (Nov 2004)
- Booklist
"They're like something out of a country-and-western song, these Tates of West Texas, what with their good women and bad dogs, bad luck and good honky-tonks. But that's where the song lyric cliche comparison ends. In Cook's hands, the series of linked stories introducing the Tates fairly thrums with keen insight born of uncommon wisdom and unwavering compassion for his characters. From the newly eloped oldest sister to the youngest still in his crib, we meet nearly everyone we need to know in the first of four sections, and the signature events both subtly and powerfully foreshadow what will be revealed in subsequent tales. As each of the Tates takes his or her turn in the spotlight, we come to know a family shaken by violence, overcome by sorrow, and, most of all, driven by a palpable longing for something or someone always just out of reach. Cook's debut collection is a breathtakingly haunting and magical tapestry of human emotions." — Carol Haggas (Oct. 1, 2004)
- San Antonio Express-News
"Tales of a Texas Family"
"K.L. Cook's debut collection of linked stories, Last Call, won the Prairie Schooner Book Prize, and no wonder: Like the characters and their lives, Cook's writing is ruthless and tender, complex and focused, sad as well as funny. In other words, his book is an engaging reflection of the human condition...From honky-tonk to lyricism, music lives in these stories...and so does wisdom and love tough enough to get kicked but keep getting back up. K. L. Cook's Last Call is a close look at a big-hearted, blundering Texas family. Move over, McMurtry." — Nan Cuba (Sept 26, 2004)
- Advance Praise for Last Call
Read advance praise of Last Call by award-winning writers Robert Boswell, Ron Carlson, and Jean Thompson.
- Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)
A remarkably accomplished first collection covers 32 years in the life of a fragmented West Texas family. The first four stories ("Easter Weekend," "Nature's Way," "Gone," and "Thrumming") unfold during a few months in 1958. Laura, 14, has an older sister who has recently eloped, an older brother, and two younger brothers. Her father is away for days at a time working in Amarillo, and her mother is restless in a way only Laura seems to notice. The two family dogs, Fay Wray and her daughter Greta, provide some of the more vivid images, particularly when Greta runs off and comes back badly wounded, then gives birth to a litter. Still wild from her own damage, she shreds them with her teeth. Within weeks, Laura's mother runs off, leaving her children without a backward glance. The rest of the volume follows the damaged siblings as they grow older and have children of their own. The exquisite title story is told from the point of view of older sister Gloria's son Travis, who works with her at a bar...after her husband and other son have been killed in a car wreck and her daughter is pregnant with a girl who dies at birth. Travis is both tender and tough as he struggles to protect his mother with wisdom beyond his years. In a stunning feat of telescoping, Cook gives us some later years of estrangement and reconciliation in a matter of a few heartbreaking paragraphs.... Cook is subtle as he illuminates the fragile connections between men and women.
A family's tragic trajectory viewed through the kaleidoscope of time in stories that make an immensely satisfying whole. Winner of the Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Fiction. (Sept 1, 2004)
* What do the stars accompanying some book reviews mean?
A star is assigned to books of unusual merit, determined by the editors of Kirkus Reviews.
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