Souvenir of Cold Springs

by Kitty Burns Florey

Book Overview

One family's secrets, betrayals, and hopes, are woven together through four generations into a tapestry of memory and love in this humorous novel of power and grace. Tumbling backwards in time, from 1987 to 1938, and seen through the eyes of four generations of women, Souvenir of Cold Springs is the story of one extended family and the secrets from the past that shaped their lives. The story begins when Margaret Neal, a junior at Harvard, drops out...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1582431531
• ISBN13: 9781582431536
• Release Date: July 2001
• Publisher: Catapult
• Length: 312 Pages
• Weight: 1.07 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.8" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

An intriguing read

I must confess that I wasn't sure about reading this book at first ~~ it sounded so depressing especially when the novel started off with Margaret who is dealing with an unwanted pregnancy and the aftermath of an abortion. However, as I continue to read this book, I find it very intriguing and very interesting. It's definitely a book geared to mothers and daughters ~~ and Florey describes the intricate interweaving of relationships between mothers, daughters, sisters and lovers with a flair that most authors don't seem to have these days. This book is also written in an unique way. Florey starts with the present ~~ Margaret, the fifth generation, then it travels back into time. Florey takes a chapter for each woman and brings these women alive with feelings, dreams and broken dreams, unfulfilled desires and sadness, and on and on. It's wonderfully written and I loved it. I, personally, can relate to every character in the book ~~ and Florey has done a wonderful job of bringing them to life. These are women who are flesh and blood like the rest of us. I wouldn't hesitate to pick up this book ~~ fortunately, my mother picked it up and loaned it to me to read. I can't wait to give it back to her and urge her to read it next! Like mother, like daughter. =) This is a book you should read and pass onto all the mothers and sisters and daughters in your life. 5-8-03

Loved this book....

Oh, how I recommend this book! Over the last twenty years I have read and LOVED all of Kitty Burns Florey's novels; but Souvenir of Cold Springs is the most pleasurable and satisfying one of them all -- a richly detailed and fascinating group portrait of five generations of Kerwin women. In this novel, Ms. Florey's intriguing technique is to carefully expose successive layers under the surface image, from the newest back through the murky past, using a series of vignettes which both reveal the family's history and join it to the present. The unusual result is that the members of this family-- the living and those long gone-- all seem finally to appear together in the portrait --- sketchy bits of family history filled in, dark misunderstandings brought into focus, the composition completed.The effect of Florey's masterful and engaging prose is to draw one in, well beyond the point of reader, to a place of closer observation . . . perhaps that of a close neighbor or old family friend. The troubles and pleasures of family life are all there, brought to vibrant life in her inimitable style. She has always had a deft touch with the telling detail, the quick laugh at a family joke, the sharp pain of family tragedy; but in this novel, her great talent is even more impressive. This is a wonderful book; and at the same time I was reluctant to turn the last page, I was led to think of my own family in a new and more interesting way.

Good, but

I have loved Kitty Burns Florey's writng for a very long time. Her strengths are present- clear characters, ample, but not overwhelming detail, and a sincere affection.However, I found the structure of this otherwised fine book disorienting. Unlike Margaret Atwood's _Cat's Eye_, another novel which plays with structure, this only regresses until the last chapter, a not entirely satisfying wrap-up.The strongest, most interesting character is Nell. There is no explicit sex, but Nell's lesbainism is dealt with in a forthright manner.I want to like this book more than I do. I am not sorry I read it, though.

A unique and sophisticated novel

Margaret Neal is a junior at Harvard who, after a disastrous liaison with unfortunate consequences drops out of school. She tries to raise money for a ticket to California by appealing to her Aunt Nell Kerwin, an ex-school teacher who lives in the old family home with only a cat for company. When Aunt Nell replies to Margaret's plea for help she encloses as a gift an odd but cherished souvenir that weaves in and out of the story as a series of crucial truths about the family's haunted and troubled history is revealed, bit by bit. Author Kitty Florey uses interlocking narratives to peel away layers of a larger story of painful events that arose from one impulsive act buried deep in the family's past and which resulted in generations of misconceptions, rationalizations, and outright lies. The reader is taken back through the 20th century to see how this family (and any family) is a rich accumulation of events that built one upon another into a complex, intergenerational fabric of stories, traditions, and secrets. In the final epilogue, Aunt Nell ruminates on the past and antipathies the future, thereby bringing the novel back to the present and a completely satisfying reorientation for the reader. Souvenir Of Cold Springs is a unique and sophisticated novel that engages the reader's attention and just won't let go from first page to last.