Dwelling Places

by Vinita Hampton Wright

Book Overview

Mack and Jodie have no idea how much their lives are going to change when they decide to give up farming. Mack is hospitalized with depression, Jodie finds herself tempted by the affections of another man, and their teenage children begin looking for answers outside the family--Kenzie turns to fundamentalist Christianity, and Taylor starts cavorting with Goths. Told in the unforgettable voices of each family member, this powerful story of family...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060859547
• ISBN13: 9780060859541
• Release Date: March 2007
• Publisher: HarperOne
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.1" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

Brilliant in Understanding and Scope

Vinita Hampton Wright's book packs a great wallop. I chose this book because it is set in my home state of Iowa. It was only after I was well into the book that I realized that although the town of Beulah is fictional, she did base it on Mahaska County. My dad graduated from Eddyville High; my aunt lived in Fremont; and my grandparents moved south to Monroe County in Albia. I have spent a good deal of time in this area. So I felt connected by virtue of the setting to this story. Clearly, Wright uses it as a universal setting for rural areas where people work hard and have a hard time making ends meet. I think she gets it right. This story seems so true to life because the characters are very much like real people. I really appreciated the father Mack who has suffered major setbacks in losing his farm, his father and brother. The depression that this sends him into is well articulated. Wright allows us to get in Mack's head. We see that although he's deeply unhappy and unfulfilled on one level, he also greatly loves his family. His connection to his son young Taylor is beautiful. Young Taylor may wear the Goth make-up & garb, but inside he's a kid trying to come to terms with a difficult circumstance in his own unique way. While mother Jodie tends to want to rail at Young Taylor, Mack takes time to listen to his son, whether he's bailing him out of jail or sitting in a graveyard over his father and brother's graves. The women are also written very well. The mother Rita who cares for everybody and makes it her business to help people without fanfare is so true-to-life. Her wisecrack that she understands how women who get older sometimes become lesbians just so they won't have to look after men anymore was hilarious. Wife Jodie feels all the pressures of the family on her children. She is deeply unhappy, but too busy to consider it. Whenever things get too emotional, she cleans. She is out of touch with her own feelings and can barely manage it when Terry starts giving her attention which leads to an affair. Her daughter Kenzie gets wrapped up in an evangelical Jesus movement and becomes too fundamental even for her own friends. This leads 14-year-old Kenzie to her 30-something friend Mitchell as they hatch their plans to head to Kansas to a cult-like Christian retreat, without her parents' knowledge or approval. Wright masterfully manages the subplots of the affair and the runaway into the crises this family must face. The church service for the families to mourn their former farm lives is moving. My favorite part (pp. 275-281) is between Mack and Young Taylor while Mack removes the Goth makeup as Young Taylor explains why he wears it. The father's understanding and acceptance of his son even as he holds firm to the family's standards is beautiful, particularly for any dad of a troubled teen. In the end, what comes to me from this book is that families are made of generations of people, all imperfect, with differi

Another lovely, big-hearted story

I've enjoyed all of Ms. Wright's books including her non-fiction books on creativity and writing. Dwelling Places is truly something special. She has deftly and lovingly written about mental illness in a way that should open the eyes of anyone who reads this book. It is a sticky subject, something many people still feel awkward and uneasy about. But with her unflinching eye and obvious caring for people, she reveals the characters in Dwelling Places in such a way that it would be difficult for a person not to acknowledge and sympathize with the pain experienced by mentally ill people and the people who love them. I congratulate and applaud her for tackling a tough subject in such a graceful manner.

dearness, humor, wisdom and depth

I loved dwelling in this book. The story unfolds from several points of view and each is distinct and unique and of interest. The context of the book, the failure of family farms, is rendered as well as the story of a family towed under by losing their farm. This book relates some tragic stuff, but reading it didn't make me sad--because there's humor, and tenderness and warmth in the telling of the story. I actually found myself yearning to be part of a farm family, to have that kind of closeness to each other and the land. The depiction of the teen characters was especially good I thought. And best of all were these wise sentences, places where the writer went deeper and I learned something. Many of the characters have lost their faith, and this loss is placed against the words of some incredibly beautiful hymns used at the begining of chapters. I wanted the characters to regain their faith and some of them did, but what they regain is different and seems less and thinner than the faith expressed in the hymns, and the faith the characters had before their losses, and this is hard to read as an evangelical Christian. Also, the end of the story was quite abrupt. I don't believe I have ever read a good book that ended so abruptly before. It was as if someone had cut off the real ending and misprinted the book.

UPLIFTING!!

When I picked this book up I did not know anything about the author or her previous works. I was immediately captivated by the "realness" of her characters. I just love Rita! When I completed the novel I couldn't sleep. The characters were so alive in my head and all the underlying tones of the book had me awakened physically and spiritually. I had no idea that Wright was labeled as a Christian Author, even after reading the book. Curiousity led me to her website where I encountered her background. The changing of the seasons througout the story is what meshed it all together for me. I had always heard pastors in church use this as an illustration of the cycle of life, earthly and heavenly. All of these characters go through a sense of death, rebirth, and new life. I do seem to be working backwards in reading Wright's work but so far I have equally enjoyed both "Dwelling Places" and "Velma Still Cooks in Leeway".

Excellent...as always

`Dwelling Places' begins with vivid and rich descriptions, and doesn't really give up from there. Much like her two previous novels `Grace and Bender Springs' and `Velma Doesn't Cook In Leeway,' Wright gives a Christian message without moralizing. It is rich in characters, lush in storytelling, and filled with words that sway poetically at times on the page. What's always worked so well in Wright's storytelling abilities is you don't have to be a Christian to enjoy them; they're about families with problems everyone has: the children who are both crying out for help in radically different ways, the husband who is having a midlife crisis, the wife whose doesn't know how to fix her marriage, and the grandma who shows up as the foundation to the family. In many respects, her stories are like parables; she gives the reader a good moral message, but it's up to the reader to discover why it's moral.