Autorenbild.

Robb Forman Dew (1946–2020)

Autor von The Family Heart: A Memoir of When Our Son Came Out

8+ Werke 1,060 Mitglieder 16 Rezensionen

Über den Autor

The novels of Robb Forman Dew deal primarily with the nature of relationships in contemporary family life. Dale Loves Sophie to Death (1981), a winner of the American Book Award in 1982, inspired a sequel, Fortunate Lives (1992). Her third novel, The Time of Her Life, was published in 1984. Dew has mehr anzeigen also published a non-fiction work about her own family, Family Heart: A Memoir of When Our Son Came Out; and a cookbook, A Southern Thanksgiving: Recipes and Musings for a Manageable Feast (1992). She wrote a fiction trilogy which included The Evidence Against Her (2001), The Truth of the Matter (2005), and Being Polite to Hitler (2011). Dew, born in 1946, was raised in the South and credits time spent living with her grandfather, John Crowe Ransom, poet and critic, as an influence on her writing style. She is married to historian Charles Dew, and has two sons. Rob Forman Dew died at the age of 73 on May 22, 2020. (Bowker Author Biography) weniger anzeigen
Bildnachweis: Howie Levitz

Reihen

Werke von Robb Forman Dew

The Evidence Against Her (2001) 256 Exemplare
Dale Loves Sophie to Death (1981) 206 Exemplare
The Truth of the Matter (2005) 107 Exemplare
Being Polite to Hitler (2011) 95 Exemplare
Fortunate Lives (1992) 76 Exemplare
The Time of Her Life (1984) 51 Exemplare

Zugehörige Werke

A World Unsuspected: Portraits of Southern Childhood (1987) — Mitwirkender — 35 Exemplare

Getagged

Wissenswertes

Mitglieder

Rezensionen

* For Bob
Family - 18 yr old going to college summer before
pg 28 -
Interest in anything @ her child - not set life - just book read
pg 60
Fragility Humpty Dumpty - family life
pg 127
peaked at 15/16 "Early Bloom, early Rot"
pg 263 -
"45 years old, father dead, mother failing, Older son adult, daughter growing aloof - soon he + wife all left - too much weight to lose - stripped so lean, attenuated, thinned, chilled in encroaching solitude."

The Howells family are revisited in the summer of 1991. David, 18, is preparing to go to Harvard and Sarah is now 13. A young woman, Netta Breckenridge, enters the family's lives and creates a fragile domesticity for the Howells.… (mehr)
 
Gekennzeichnet
christinejoseph | Jan 18, 2016 |
In the way Wharton and James provide character studies to talk about love in all its forms, so does Robb Dew. In stolid Washburn, Ohio unexpectedly exceptional people dwell, dream large, and fulfill deep ambitions for success and domestic tranquility. Three families', the Scofields, the Butlers, and the Claytors, lives intertwine from the town's beginnings, through its prosperity during WWI, and its tranquility during the mid-20s.

Dew peels back layers of detail, letting small quotidian events cascade into life-changing scenes; seemingly placid families erupt when emotionally unstable parents let loose violence tamped down too long. Contrary to the popular opinions, lovers "mismatch" and surprise the denizens of Washburn, upsetting expectations.

This is a novel that will remind readers of Wilder's "Our Town," a play also crammed with quotidian detail but encompassing great spaces that yield to ruminations and internal musings as the men and women live and complete their lives in small town America.

Dew's prose flows smoothly like a river, tranquility pervades in the face of temporary crises. But a limpid style does not equate with a boring book. As the three central characters: Lily; her cousin, Warren; their childhood playmate and later Lily's husband, Robert; and the younger Agnes who weds Warren grow up, the city does too and we see a portrait of the kinds of steadfast and solid characters who forged the American dream and an international power. Dew has produced a candidate for the title, "Great American Novel."
… (mehr)
 
Gekennzeichnet
Limelite | 2 weitere Rezensionen | Oct 10, 2014 |
There's something lovely about this portrait of gracious living in a small Ohio town. The intimate, episodes, elegantly detailed and loosely interwoven, recalls Virginia Woolf. Nothing much happens, although love manages to be affirmed in spite of family dysfunction.
 
Gekennzeichnet
AnesaMiller | 6 weitere Rezensionen | Mar 17, 2014 |
I thought this was going to be hard review to write while I was reading the book, but after some days have past since I finished it, I have discovered that my memory of the book and the points that I wanted to bring up are gone - serves me right for not writing this stuff down when it came to me.

The story is focused on Dinah Howells, a mother of three in her late 30's, but flips to her husband's point of view from time to time. For the most part, Dinah is a product of her upbringing - the daughter of an interior designer mom and a psychologist dad raised in the small town of Enfield, Ohio. Even though she lives in Massachusetts with her professor husband and children, Dinah and the children have returned to Enfield every summer for the past eight years while her husband spends most of the summer in Massachusetts to work. Dinah's relationship with her parents is strained - as are most of her relationships - and it is only over the course of the story that certain facts are revealed to the reader.

To quote one of the three reviews currently posted on Librarything: "Confusing, overwrought and too much introspection and navel gazing for my liking." sums this one up nicely. There is nothing likeable about any of the characters. They are all whiny, self-centered individuals that do not seem to understand how to love, care or give, unless it is as some 'over the top' reaction or outburst. Ironically, the story has a languid flow to it. Even when startling events occur, they occur without emotionally involving the reader and appear as though viewed through thick, bottle glass - you can see what is going on but it is a bit blurry and muffled.

So, you are probably wondering about the title for the story and exactly how it fits in with the story. Who are Dale and Sophie? We don't know. 'Dale Loves Sophie to Death', we are told, is graffiti emblazoned on the railway bridge the Howells drive under every summer on their way to Enfield and tends to mark their final approach into Enfield after two days of driving. The following quote where Dinah chastises her husband is a good excerpt to exemplify this story:
"You think that 'Dale Loves Sophie to Death' should be typed. And tacked up on a little bulletin board in Jesse Hall. You know, there's something about real, honest-to-God emotion - I mean real things that real people go around feeling - that you just never can understand. I mean, 'Dale Loves Sophie to Death' is not exactly a lower-case sentiment! I don't think you know a damned thing about that! You just go mincing through your life with almost nothing but lower-case sentiments!"
If introspective examinations of personal and family life written in languid and florid prose appeals to you - I know, that sounds like a contradiction but the story has both - this is probably your kind of story. For me, it was a book that I almost Pearl-ruled, decided to stick with it, grew to appreciate some aspects of the story but for the most part it fell somewhat flat of its mark.
… (mehr)
 
Gekennzeichnet
lkernagh | 6 weitere Rezensionen | Dec 11, 2013 |

Listen

Auszeichnungen

Dir gefällt vielleicht auch

Nahestehende Autoren

Statistikseite

Werke
8
Auch von
1
Mitglieder
1,060
Beliebtheit
#24,290
Bewertung
½ 3.4
Rezensionen
16
ISBNs
46
Sprachen
1

Diagramme & Grafiken