Yellowcake

by Ann Cummins

Book Overview

For her acclaimed collection of stories, Red Ant House, Joyce Carol Oates hailed Ann Cummins as "a master storyteller." The San Francisco Chronicle called her "startlingly original." Now, in her debut novel, Cummins stakes claim to rich new literary territory with a story of straddling cultures and cheating fate in the American Southwest.
Yellowcake introduces us to two unforgettable families--one Navajo, one Anglo--some thirty years after the...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0547053576
• ISBN13: 9780547053578
• Release Date: April 2008
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

wise and deep novel

I flat-out love this novel. The review in the Washington Post, which described the "marvels of insight and sympathy" in Ann Cummins's perceptions and character depiction, seems to get at what makes it so great -- that the book should have such a gripping set of intertwined plots, all beautifully balanced, along with wonderful writing, urgent human questions, and believable characters. It's a wonder to have so many vivid people in this novel, all completely distinct and all seen with a mixture of clarity and compassion. Ann Cummins seems to understand people of all different ages, genders, backgrounds, celebrating their quirks and strengths without excusing any of their faults. This is a novel that you experience as if you were living it rather than reading it. The book provides an education in how it feels to inhabit different lives. How are people caught in their circumstances, what kinds of choices do they have to make, and what do their choices cost them and the people around them? What are the specific human results of bottom-line decisions? At what point does peace of mind or duty to the family feel more important then doing the "right" thing? What is the right thing, and how do we know? As a reader, I have a weakness for literary page turners, writers like Iris Murdoch or Toni Morrison who can keep you up all night with great plots and beautiful language, writers who can create characters you seem to know better than most of the people in your life. Yellowcake is that kind of literary page turner. It is a pleasure to read, and at the same time it makes demands: its intelligence asks for intelligence on the part of its readers. It leaves you bigger afterward, if you're able to face the questions it raises.

Ordinary Family Relationships--Extraordinary Book

Knowing nothing about the southwest, Navaho culture, uranium mining, or the illnesses that come from it, I entered a whole new world when I read Yellowcake. But not entirely new: Families seem to be the same everywhere, and the author has been able to capture the rich functions and dysfuctions of daily life in families and extended families when everything is going on: wedding preparations, terminal illness, new relationships blossoming, old relationships exploding. The inter- and intracultural, inter- and intragenerational relationships bring light to the external circumstances in the novel, just as the external circumstances push and pull the characters to their best and worst behavior. I've learned some about the southwest, Navaho culture, uranium mining, and Yellowcake, but mostly, I've entered a world of some very real people, and watched them as they've made difficult decisions under difficult circumstances. I loved the book, and didn't want my relationship with these people to end.

A great Southwestern read

Having lived for many years in New Mexico and being an enthusiastic consumer of fiction set in the area, I grabbed Ann Cummins' novel off the shelf as soon as it was published. I expected a muck-raking story of oppression and exploitation in the notorious open-pit uranium mines. But what I found instead was a complex interweaving of several distinct stories, all centering on the difficult choices--and compromises-- we all must make in life. The characters were well developed and richly diverse, especially the half Navajo hero who holds the story together. I finished the book in a single evening, staying up far later than I should have on a work night. I was wiped out the next morning. It was well worth it. I've read a lot of other "southwestern" novelists---Udall, LaFarge, Anaya, Hillerman, and even Willa Cather. Ann Cummins is right up there with them.