Sarah Messer

This book could have been so much better than it was - which is the truly disappointing thing.

The book tells the story of a house in southern Massachusetts that has been lived in (almost exclusively) by the same family from 1646 through the mid 1960's when a new, unrelated family, buys the house and lives there. The story is told in alternating chapters based on the historical knowledge for each generation of the original family then from the perspective of the current owners.

What went wrong is that neither perspective is well told. Knowing that there are limited records from the mid 1600's, the reader is not drawn to what happened at that time but there are long descriptions of the land and the house. My imagination couldn't really pull together what the area looked like in 1646 and how that changed in the subsequent eras. The perspective of the current residents was spotty and uneven. There is a paragraph near the end of the book, where the author (who grew up in the house as the 'current family') relays a conversation with an old boyfriend and goes into detail on what was on his tuna sandwich! I really didn't understand why the conversation (and subsequent actions) were even included never mind the tuna sandwich.

What does come across is how difficult it is to have a family house passed through the decades - the allure of history but the potential resentment that you could never create your own history but continue to live the history of your extended family. For the current family that lives there, they are living in a house with someone else history - the history they are making in their day-to-day live getting overshadowed by the history of the house and the generations of people that lived there previously.

I wanted to like this book but there is a lot that was wrong with it and not enough that drew me in. If this wasn't a book club book, I don't think I would have finished it.… (mehr)

Got to p. 87. I wish I'd read the original article. I just couldn't connect with this. It reminds me of the [a:Tracy Kidder|4770|Tracy Kidder|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1205329434p2/4770.jpg] and [a:Ian Frazier|25281|Ian Frazier|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1246138286p2/25281.jpg] and [a:William Least Heat-Moon|1254084|William Least Heat-Moon|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1266913173p2/1254084.jpg] I've read, but Kidder is the only one of the bunch that I actually want to read more of. Nothing at all wrong with Messer's book, and you may very well love it... just not for me.… (mehr)

I'm not one for history (except when it comes to war). That being said, this is the first non-fiction piece I've ever read that managed to fuse what seems like nonsensical history together with an overall theme of meaning. I wasn't simply reading a book stating how tall the chimney of Red House is and what color it is, I was reading a book describing a house as though it was the main character.

Indeed, Red House is the main character in this story. The reader starts out becoming familiar with the dad of the family more than even the narrator, but that slowly transitions when the narrator begins her research and begins to understand what the house really means to her, her family, and the Hatch families who came before.

I'll admit, for me, even though the book was better than expected, it was still painful at times, and it almost felt like I had completed a huge challenge when I finished the book. That doesn't mean I didn't like the writing style: I enjoyed the plot, the grammar was spot-on perfect, ...but, it just wasn't my personal favorite of the year. When it comes to non-fiction, I enjoy novels more along the lines of memoirs. Yes, this book does a good job of letting you understand who the narrator is through the house, but I wanted to know more. And I think it was intentional on the author's part to not deliver that since, duh, the book is about Red House, not the author!… (mehr)