The Singing and Dancing Daughters of God

by Timothy Schaffert

Book Overview

A blithe and redemptive seriocomic love story filled with country music, the ghosts of Halloween, and an ironic brand of down-home religion. Newly divorced and feeling the pain of separation from his family, Hud Smith channels his regret into writing country-western songs, contemplating life on the lam with his 8-year-old daughter, and searching cryptic postcards for news of his teenage son who has run off with The Daughters of God, an alternative...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1932961127
• ISBN13: 9781932961126
• Release Date: November 2005
• Publisher: Unbridled Books
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.3" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

A Warm, Witty Look at Family

Timothy Schaffert's 2nd novel is much more than the typical, quirky rural novel; it's a tender, thoughtful examination of parents and children. I thought it expertly captured that duality we parents all face: our fierce desire to protect and love our children, contrasted with the damage we sometimes inflict upon them, despite our best intentions. Hud, Tuesday and Oz are deeply flawed and barely able to make sense of their own lives, let alone their children's, but that doesn't stop them from loving their children deeply and trying, no matter what, to keep their families together. In the end I cared so much about these characters I wanted to wrap my arms around them and take them home with me. I can't wait until Schaffert's next book.

Eccentricly Wonderful!

Timothy Schaffert's style is takes-no-prisoners wonderful. The Singing and Dancing Daughters of God is filled with characters who have foibles and flaws but who take the reader along on a wonderful ride. As a librarian I can recommend this book to an over-70 crowd knowing they will appreciate it, but more importantly I can give it to my 20-year-old daughter and know she'll love it too. It's a rare writer who appeals to such a wide range of readers. This novel is very nearly perfect.

Wonderful

This is Timothy's second novel ("The Phantom Limbs of the Rollow Sisters" was his first). I am friends with Timothy so my review might be a little bias, but I know a good book when I read one. This book was something wonderful. I thought I'd take a couple days last week and read it. That plan changed when I couldn't put it down after starting. This is the type of book you'll love because it's so well written and the people in the book are so odd and interesting at the same time you'll be hooked in 5 minutes. You'll love it I'm sure.

Quirky story told by a skilled wordsmith....

These characters are earthy and real, common folk with endearing foibles and vulnerabilities. Schaffert breathes life into his characters with a delicate touch, lending a poignant dignity to even the oddest misfit. Hud Smith writes mournful country songs and drinks more than he should. He lives above the shoe repair shop on the square in a fading Nebraska town but dreams of reconciling with his ex-wife, Tuesday. Every dream he ever had has fallen through, but despite his dreary life, Hud faces every day with hope and humor. He plays piano and sings at a nearby Ramada, fending off lonely women who find his music appealing, living for the day his family will be restored. Tuesday's mothering skills are somewhat lacking. She barely has the energy and drive to supervise their eight year old daughter, Nina. Nina is an irrepressible child who sings off key and makes up graceless dance steps. Whatever Nina does, Hud finds adorable and brilliant. He adores his quirky daughter and imagines stealing her away from Tuesday to keep her with him all the time. Their seventeen year old son Gatling has run away from home to play guitar and sing backup with The Daughters of God, an iconic Christian rock group. Nina is all Hud and Tuesday have left to remind them of a marriage that once brought joy. All three dream of having Gatling back home where he belongs and set off in a borrowed schoolbus to find him. Circulating around this mismatched threesome are an equally strange mix of friends, neighbors, and churchgoers who speak their own dark language. The story is often humorous, but is not a cruel parody of life's rejects. These are lives made up of large and small failures, joys, and negotiations. And Schaffert makes them shine. Highly recommended.

"The whole world likes to mourn together and hate together when it can."

You don't know what to expect when a novel begins with the celebration of an execution. Everyone is in costume to commemorate the death of a father who killed his two sons by putting rat poison in their Halloween candy apples. And the newly divorced school bus driver, Hud Smith, carries a root beer bottle filled with vodka, ruminating on his separation from eight-year old Nina as he chauffeurs the oddball kids to school in the morning. Meanwhile, Hud's seventeen-year old son, Gatling, has taken to the road with a popular gospel singing group, The Daughters of God, Sunny, Harmony, Dolly and June. Hud also thinks about religion, how it "got passed around town like something infectious". Where most kids used to escape in music, drugs and sex, the teens in this Nebraska town are clinging to that old time religion, quoting doomsday verses from the Bible and inking red dots on their palms to express solidarity with the Crucifixion. When the Daughters of God singing group shows up at the Rivoli Sky-Vue drive-in theater, Hud is hoping for a reunion with his son, but things never go as Hud expects and he is forced to make adjustments to his plans. Luckily, just about everything that happens to Hud is an inspiration for a new song. These people live simple lives, their worldly goods slightly shabby, faithful congregations at Sunday services, their only expectations to minimize trouble and grief. Filled with strange rituals, quirky residents and an infusion of religious fanaticism, this novel is a symphony of images, parents caught up in broken dreams, their children holding the Good Book and murmuring damnation scripture. Each character is uniquely eccentric: Hud, the alcoholic song-writer; his ex, Tuesday, who is drifting slowly back to her husband; Ozzie Yates, the best friend whose wife died of breast cancer, leaving him to raise teen-aged Charlotte alone; the enigmatic Charlotte, once girlfriend to Hud's son, traveling gospel musician, Gatling; and Junior, Charlotte's current boyfriend, preacher of biblical catastrophe. The Singing and Dancing Daughters of God is a charming story of regular people somehow gone off track, the promises of youth abandoned for a more realistic approach to the daily troubles that come with marriage and raising children. These hapless characters are all the more sympathetic for their faults, their personalities familiar and unpretentious. I suspect this small town in Nebraska is a microcosm for Anywhere, USA, where generations stumble through the social changes of an evolving society, one hand firmly clutching the values that make them such likeable people. There is a strong undercurrent of hope as Hud struggles to regain his fragmented family, both children benefiting from their parents' love, if sometimes misguided. Every heartache is tempered with tenderness, every mistake with forgiveness. Luan Gaines/ 2005.