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Loading... Good-Bye and Amenby Beth Gutcheon
   None No current Talk conversations about this book.  Jennifer708 | Mar 21, 2020 |   I did want to see how some of the secondary conflicts ultimately played out, but perhaps that's material for a sequel. Also, I could never figure out who exactly the ghostly narrator was, although that could be because I hadn't read Leeway Cottage first. I also appreciated the brief biographies of each character at the back of the book. I only wish I had found it sooner. It would have made things so much easier if it had been at the beginning. Some quotes I enjoyed: "Andrew Carnegie said that if you die rich, you die disgraced. Well, Mother will be safe with Andrew, if they meet in heaven. She'd been living beyond her means for years. Way beyond." (Page 4). "Apparently once Rachel threw his suits into the bathtub and set them on fire so he wouldn't have anything to wear to work. That's not normal. But I begin to think there may well have been two sides to that story." (Page 28). You don't say... "There are always two sides in a marriage. Always. At least two." (Page 28). "Once I understood where the ring came from, I wanted it. It's hard, dividing this stuff. It isn't really bits of stone and metal and wood. It's the history of our family. Who loved who, who was cruel, who was kind." (Page 52). On a larger scale, this is why we need archeologists and indeed the entire field of archeology. "I once worked in a school where they'd had a really pugnacious head. He couldn't get along with anyone, although he'd come with great recommendations. Turns out the last school gave him glowing recs because they wanted to get rid of him." (Page 62). I laughed so hard. (  ) Jennifer708 | Mar 21, 2020 | ) Smits | Sep 28, 2018 | Fiction based on fact including pictures, this is a generational story about a family and a summer home in Maine. Good story! But there were so many references to people from the other book, the past, that it made the reading a wee bit confusing. THAT SAID: I WOULD read another by this author. ( ) lineells | Oct 19, 2017 |  ) amusedbybooks | Dec 9, 2010 | no reviews | add a review
Awards
Fiction.
Literature.
Beth Gutcheon's sequel to the novel LEEWAY COTTAGE is ideally suited to the audiobook format. Although helpful, it's not necessary to have read the earlier work in order to understand and enjoy GOOD-BYE AND AMEN. The continuing story of the Moss family, following the parents' deaths, is told in a series of interviews. Each character is introduced before speaking, and every incident is developed from several points of view. Narrator Joyce Bean displays an impressive range of voices and accents that succeed in giving a clearly defined identity to each character. These voices, along with the introductions, allow the listener to follow the story with relative ease. Author and narrator combine to create a thoroughly enjoyable audiobook. M.O.B. (c) AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine.
HTML: Beth Gutcheon's critically acclaimed family saga Leeway Cottage was a major achievement: a vivid and moving tale of war and marriage and their consequences that enchanted readers. Good-bye and Amen is the next chapter for the family of Leeway Cottage, the story of what happens when those most powerful people in any family drama, the parents, have left the stage. The complicated marriage of the gifted Danish pianist Laurus Moss to the provincial American child of privilege Sydney Brant was a mystery to many who knew them, including their three children. Now, Eleanor, Monica, and Jimmy Moss have to decide how to divide or share what Laurus and Sydney have left them without losing one another. Secure and cheerful Eleanor, the oldest, wants little for herself but much for her children. Monica, the least-loved middle child, brings her youthful scars to the table, as well as the baggage of a difficult marriage to the charismatic Norman, who left a brilliant legal career, though not his ambition, to become an Episcopal priest. Youngest and best-loved Jimmy, who made a train wreck of his young adulthood, has returned after a long period of alienation from the family surprisingly intact but extremely hard for his sisters to read. Having lived through childhoods both materially blessed and emotionally difficult, with a father who could seem uninvolved and a mother who loved a good family game of "let's you and him fight," the Mosses have formed strong adult bonds that none of them wants to damage. But it's difficult to divide a beloved summer house three ways and keep it too. They all know what's at stake---in a world of atomized families, a house like Leeway Cottage can be the glue that keeps generations of cousins and grandchildren deeply connected to one another. But knowing it's important doesn't make it easy. .No library descriptions found. |
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 Google Books — Loading...GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.54Literature American literature in English American fiction in English 1900-1999 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage: (3)
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I did want to see how some of the secondary conflicts ultimately played out, but perhaps that's material for a sequel. Also, I could never figure out who exactly the ghostly narrator was, although that could be because I hadn't read Leeway Cottage first.
I also appreciated the brief biographies of each character at the back of the book. I only wish I had found it sooner. It would have made things so much easier if it had been at the beginning.
Some quotes I enjoyed:
"Andrew Carnegie said that if you die rich, you die disgraced. Well, Mother will be safe with Andrew, if they meet in heaven. She'd been living beyond her means for years. Way beyond." (Page 4).
"Apparently once Rachel threw his suits into the bathtub and set them on fire so he wouldn't have anything to wear to work. That's not normal. But I begin to think there may well have been two sides to that story." (Page 28). You don't say...
"There are always two sides in a marriage. Always. At least two." (Page 28).
"Once I understood where the ring came from, I wanted it. It's hard, dividing this stuff. It isn't really bits of stone and metal and wood. It's the history of our family. Who loved who, who was cruel, who was kind." (Page 52). On a larger scale, this is why we need archeologists and indeed the entire field of archeology.
"I once worked in a school where they'd had a really pugnacious head. He couldn't get along with anyone, although he'd come with great recommendations. Turns out the last school gave him glowing recs because they wanted to get rid of him." (Page 62). I laughed so hard. (