Showing posts with label Erin Bartels. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Erin Bartels. Show all posts

Sunday, December 27, 2020

All That We Carried by Erin Bartels

 

...it was clear that if God was real, he was after her.~from All That We Carried by Erin Bartels
Is life a series of random accidents, or is there a plan? If there is a god, why does God permit evil? Or does this god punish us? Or, lead us to be better? Are people basically self-centered, and therefor evil, and if so, can they change--be saved? And if people can change, can we forgive them?

Sisters Olivia and Melanie have been estranged since the deaths of their parents in a car accident. They were never similar, and their response to the tragedy sent them reeling in different directions. Melanie dropped out of school to settle the estate while Olivia returned to the University of Michigan. When Melanie forgave the man who caused the accident, Olivia was furious and cut her off.

As a lawyer in Lansing, MI, Olivia knows the evil side of humanity. She is controlled, repressed, and a perfectionist. Failure isn't in her vocabulary. When she isn't good at something, she gave it up.

Melanie's blog and YouTube videos turned into a career as a listener and life coach, helping people. Now its time to help herself and bridge the chasm between her sister and herself. She proposes an October hike in the Porcupine Mountains, a natural park in Michigan's Upper Peninsula where bear and cougar still roam, home to the remaining stand of hardwood and hemlock forest between the Rockies and the Appalachians.

Olivia plans the trip in detail; Melanie ignores the advice and is ill prepared. For anything can, and will, happen on the rugged, lonely trails.

Bartels not only references the Michigan landmarks that are the background to the action--she makes them come to life.

Trap Falls
In 2019, my brother and his girlfriend hiked in the Porcupines. They spent a year to prepare, every week hiking longer, harder, with backpacks and food. I knew these sisters were in for trouble from the start! Even Olivia, for all her preparedness, since she already was suffering from hip pain.
Mirror Lake

As the sisters hike the trails, I was able to look at the photographs my brother shared from their hike, shared in this post.

View from Escarpment Trail

Melanie has something she need to tell Olivia, but she needs to tear down the wall between them. The hike doesn't bring them closer. Olivia has shouldered responsibility for them both, her bossy big-sister side dominating. 

Mouth of Big Carp River
Little Carp River

One thing that surprised my brother and his companion was the elevations they had to climb, the rocks and roots. Luckily, they did not suffer any accidents. Unlike Bartel's sisters who end up fleeing a forest fire, resulting in an accident.

Crossing a Stream meant climbing a gorge

All That We Carried has so many wonderful aspects. It's almost a travel guide. It is an adventure story and a family drama. It is a psychological study of the burdens people take upon themselves. 
 
At its heart is the struggle with spiritual matters, the nature of God, the question of evil in the world, the randomness or providential nature of life, universal questions we ask as communities and individuals. 

It is the rare person who can embrace the mystery of life, avoiding anger, despair, or fear.
Overlooked Falls

I loved the Michigan references throughout the book! On the first page, I recognized "Wynken, Blynken, and Nod," the towers from the old Lansing electric plant whose blinking lights always told me I was almost home during our nine years in Lansing.

There is overt God-talk, and a mysterious character who shows up providentially. Melanie is challenged over her incorporation of all faiths into her belief system. But the changes in the characters arise out of their shared experience and conversations, their journey not over, but they have set foot on the right trail. 

I agree that this is Bartel's most mature work so far. 

I read and reviewed Bartel's previous novels We Hope for Better Things  and The Words Between Us.

I received an ARC from the publisher through LibraryThing and a galley from NetGalley. (I also pre-purchased a copy of the book.) My review is fair and unbiased.

All That We Carried: A Novel
by Erin Bartels
Pub Date: January 5, 2021 
ISBN: 9780800738365
soft cover $16.99 (USD)

"This subdued tale of learning to forgive is Bartels's best yet."--Publishers Weekly

Ten years ago, sisters Olivia and Melanie Greene were on a backcountry hiking trip when their parents were in a fatal car accident. Over the years, they grew apart, each coping with the loss in her own way. Olivia plunged herself into law school, work, and a materialist view of the world--what you see is what you get, and that's all you get. Melanie dropped out of college and developed an online life-coaching business around her cafeteria-style spirituality--a little of this, a little of that, whatever makes you happy.

Now, at Melanie's insistence (and against Olivia's better judgment), they are embarking on a hike in the Porcupine Mountains of Michigan's Upper Peninsula. In this remote wilderness they'll face their deepest fears, question their most dearly held beliefs, and begin to see that perhaps the best way to move forward is the one way they had never considered.

Michigan Notable Book Award winner Erin Bartels draws from personal experience hiking backcountry trails with her sister to bring you a story about the complexities of grief, faith, and sisterhood.


Manido Falls

Manabezho Falls
About the author

ERIN BARTELS is the award-winning author of We Hope for Better Things—a 2020 Michigan Notable Book, winner of the 2020 Star Award from the Women’s Fiction Writers Association in both the debut and general fiction categories, and a 2019 Christy Award finalist—The Words between Us—a 2020 Christy Award finalist—and All That We Carried (coming January 2021). Her short story “This Elegant Ruin” was a finalist in The Saturday Evening Post 2014 Great American Fiction Contest. Her poems have been published by The Lyric and The East Lansing Poetry Attack. A member of the Capital City Writers Association and the Women’s Fiction Writers Association, she is former features editor of WFWA’s Write On! magazine and current director of the annual WFWA Writers Retreat in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Erin lives in the beautiful, water-defined state of Michigan where she is never more than a ninety minute drive from one of the Great Lakes or six miles from an inland lake, river, or stream. She grew up in the Bay City area waiting for freighters and sailboats at drawbridges and watching the best 4th of July fireworks displays in the nation. She spent her college and young married years in Grand Rapids feeling decidedly not-Dutch. She currently lives with her husband and son in Lansing, nestled somewhere between angry protesters on the Capitol lawn and couch-burning frat boys at Michigan State University. And yet, she claims it is really quite peaceful.

Visit the author's website at https://erinbartels.com/

Greenstone Falls

Thursday, September 12, 2019

The Words Between Us by Erin Bartels

Peter reaches out to new girl in town Robin by giving her his deceased mother's books. As repayment, she writes him a poem about the book. Robin slowly allows Peter into her heart.

How can a book lover not love a story about books bonding people? Erin Bartel's novel The Words Between Us is filled with books--titles and authors, well-read dusty tomes and mass-market paperbacks--and conversations about books.

But, for Robin, books became an escape from the ugly truths of life, building a wall between her and the world.
"The shelf is filled with all but one of the books Peter had given me when I was a girl, each one a bottle containing some intoxicating fictitious liquor that promises to take me away from this incomprehensible chaos of real life and into a carefully plotted story.[...] Isn't there some literary cocktail that will help me escape?"~from The Words Between Us by Erin Bartels
At once point in her young life, Robin went so far as to stop talking, further constructing a protective shell. What drove a teenager to such extremes?

Robin's parents are both in prison and she cannot forgive them for abandoning her and cannot tolerate their crimes. Uprooted from her Amherst, MA, home to live with a grandmother in Michigan, she tries to rewrite her past with a new name and identity, lies that don't hold up. She is chained to her parent's legacy of notoriety.

Told in two timelines, the adult Robin watching her bookstore slide into bankruptcy and her backstory as a teenager, the novel explores themes of anger and forgiveness. There is romance and drama and friendship and threat and a reversal of everything Robin thought was true. Robin's foil is Sarah, a large-hearted girl who carries secret guilt under her party-girl persona.

The novel is set in a fictional small town on the Saginaw River in Michigan divided by a river. There is a journey that touches on all the Great Lakes, starting at Niagara Falls and ending on the sand dunes of Grand Marias on Lake Superior. The story concludes on Isle Royale, a National Park in Lake Superior. I loved all the Michigan mentions, including the Grand Rapids Art Prize and the carousel in the Van Andel Public Museum.
Grand Marias, MI on Lake Superior
I picked up on nods to Jane Austen. Robin's imagination concocts a wild story about Peter's father who later sends her out of his home--shades of Northanger Abbey! And there is Persuasion's wish-fulfillment hope for second chances.

Some aspects of the plot feel improbable, but most readers will be too involved with Robin to mind. The faith talk addresses a universal truth, and the romance is chaste.

Overall, I enjoyed reading The Words Between Us. It will appeal to a wide audience of readers: those who like appealing characters struggling with difficulties, young adult fiction readers, women's fiction, Christian fiction, and who love the current trend of bookish characters.
Sunset on Lake Superior
The Words Between us is Erin Bartels sophomore book; her first book was We Hope For Better Things; read my review here.
"I know why some books live on forever while others struggle for breath, forgotten on shelves and in basements...they might have told rollicking good tales and sketched out characters who were fun to follow for four hundred pages, but they hadn't bled. They hadn't cut themselves open and given up a part of themselves...they hadn't lost anything in the writing."~from The Words Between Us by Erin Bartels
I received access to a free egalley by the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

Find a reading group guide at
 http://bakerpublishinggroup.com/books/the-words-between-us/391430

The Words Between Us
by Erin Bartels
Revell
Available Now/Sept 2019
Paperback ISBN9780800734923
E-Book ISBN9781493419302
$15.99

Thursday, December 27, 2018

We Hope for Better Things Erin Bartels

We Hope for Better Things by Erin Bartels was a pleasant surprise for me. The novel is about three generations of women who live in Detroit and rural Lapeer, Michigan, spanning from the Civil War to the 1960s to today.

I found the novel to be engaging, with interesting storylines and settings, nicely paced, and with well-drawn and sympathetic characters. As a Christian novel, Bartels message is, "God has a plan." 

Elizabeth has lost her job at the Detroit Free Press.  She is asked to visit her great-aunt Nora to determine if she is the rightful owner of a camera and photographs in the possession of an African American family. With nothing holding her back, Elizabeth agrees and leaves Detroit for Lapeer.

Nora is confused and reclusive. Over time, Elizabeth pieces together a family history that involves the Underground Railroad, forbidden love, and the Detroit riot. 

I was interested in reading the book because of its setting. I grew up and now live in Metro Detroit and remember vividly the 1967 riot. Other connections include my husband's family roots in Lapeer and adjoining villages including a great-grandfather who married a Farnsworth, a name which appears in the novel.
20th c scrap quilt, African American, Detroit MI
A bonus for me was the quiltmaking that takes place! A 19th c. Crazy Quilt, a yellow hexagon quilt, and a contemporary crazy quilt are central to the story. I love that Nora is a fabric hoarder, her stash spilling out of the closet and filling dresser drawers!
Crazy Quilt
Piecing a life, piecing the mystery of the past, piecing things whole--the book's theme could be said to be the work of taking the worn scraps life hands you and creating something of beauty out of it.
A kaleidoscope of color, it was formed from varied patches of jewel-toned velvet and silk, each piece edged with multicolored embroidery thread in a hundred different patterns. from We Hope For Better Things by Erin Bartels
1903 Crazy Quilt
Crazy Quilt Detail
Historical fiction fans will enjoy the book. Women's fiction readers will respond to the challenges the women face. Plus, there is romance and heartbreak and hope. The story addresses racism throughout American history.
19th c Hexagon quilt owned by Diane Little

Learn more about what inspired the book at 
https://erinbartels.com/home/media/interviews-articles/

Bartel's amazing photographs of Michigan can be found at
https://erinbartels.com/home/photography/
Trip Around the World, late 20th c, African American, Detroit

I received a free ebook from the publisher in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

We Hope for Better Things
by Erin Bartels
Revell
Publication January 1, 2019
ISBN: 9780800734916
PRICE: $15.99 (USD)
Detroit Motto: We Hope for Better Things, It Shall Rise From the Ashes