Grace at Bender Springs

by Vinita Hampton Wright

This critically-acclaimed literary novel set in the small, worn-out town of Bender Springs, Kansas boasts an intricately detailed plot with a variety of character types that give every reader someone with which to identify.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0805421270
• ISBN13: 9780805421279
• Release Date: January 1999
• Publisher: B&H Publishing Group
• Length: 399 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Renewed in the springs!

Wright's characters capture you as eagerly turn each and every page, anxiously fretting along with them as they journey to find the graces that will quench their spiritual thirsts. Once I started reading it, I couldn't put it down. The juxtaposition of Bender Springs' past with its present was flawlessly written! Though not an epic, the finely-detailed characters and the author's attention to detail are reminiscient of Leon Uris'Trinity. The human weaknesses of the characters remind me of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird and Wright makes no apologies for the humanity of her characters. This book should be made into a movie, but one wonders what the film industry would do to its essence of life.

Something Grand and Sacred

This book begins as a haunting portrayal of desperation, but then moves---a surprising lift---into something grand and sacred and, by the end of the book, fully whole.Wright's book is a shining path through daily life---its intricacies, its secret dreams, and its momentous recoveries. BRAVO.

The Best Fiction I Read in 1999!

Just when I was beginning to be bored with all the new fiction coming down the pike, I picked up a copy of "Grace at Bender Springs." What a wonderful surprise this book was! "Grace" takes an intimate look at the lives and spiritual struggles of the residents of a small town in a way that is refreshing, authentic and hopeful, avoiding platitudes and sentimentality. The characters of this small town are earthy and believable -the kind that you might have known in your own community growing up. Perhaps the most compelling part of "Grace" is the care and respect the author shows for each of her characters - some, which on the surface, seem like easy targets for stereotyping, like the Pentecostal minister Reverend Miracle. Instead, Hampton Wright manages to cajole the reader into accepting and acknowledging the value of each person in her kaleidoscope line-up - from Randy, the teenager living with an older man and looking for meaning in her life, to Tony, a suicidal teen who is tempted to give up his life to the darkness he feels closing in, to Dave, a middle-aged, agnostic widower whose life is going nowhere. Hampton Wright's style may remind readers of Clyde Edgerton's "Walking Across Egypt," especially in the wonderful way she portrays elderly women. Characters in the book such as Mamie, an elderly widow mired in routine, and her group of card-playing friends, feel completely authentic to the reader. Like Edgerton, Hampton Wright mixes unexpected humor, small-town situations and bedrock spirituality in a way that is fresh and appealing. A stunning scene at the close of the book leaves readers with a sense of hope that the grace that touched so many in Bender Springs might also be available for them.

Beautifully written!

What a pleasure it was to read this book and to see portrayed in this story God's gentle hand in people's lives. Grace at Bender Springs is filled with memorable characters I will never forget. Thank you, Vinita Hampton Wright, wherever you are.