Ordinary Grace Author: | Language: English | ISBN:
B00BPA1T8G | Format: PDF
Ordinary Grace Description
Award-winning author William Kent Krueger has gained an immense fan base for his Cork O'Connor series. In Ordinary Grace, Krueger looks back to 1961 to tell the story of Frank Drum, a boy on the cusp of manhood. A typical 13-year-old with a strong, loving family, Frank is devastated when a tragedy forces him to face the unthinkable - and to take on a maturity beyond his years.
- Audible Audio Edition
- Listening Length: 11 hours and 2 minutes
- Program Type: Audiobook
- Version: Unabridged
- Publisher: Recorded Books
- Audible.com Release Date: March 26, 2013
- Whispersync for Voice: Ready
- Language: English
- ASIN: B00BPA1T8G
This novel is so well written and the story is so touching, I did not want it to end.
The year is 1961 and Frank Drum is a thirteen year old son of a Methodist minister in New Bremen, Minnesota. It should have been a summer of innocence, like the era. But there were four deaths in the small town that summer. And that changed everything for Frank.
The story is narrated by Frank now forty years older. He looks back and remembers the fateful summer that was full of lies and secrets. Frank's father has a secret - something that happened in the war that made him responsible for the deaths of many. Frank's artistic mother didn't marry to be a pastor's wife and has difficulty living the role. Frank's little brother, though wise beyond his years, stutters. And Frank's older sister is an accomplished pianist, organist, and composer.
Frank tries to make sense of the events as they happen over the summer. There is the death of a young boy on the railroad tracks. Later Frank and his brother stumble upon a homeless man, dead under the train trestle.
And then his sister is missing. Frank knows she had been sneaking out at night but never told their dad. As the days go by, secrets come to the light and Frank has much to think about and understand.
This is much more than just a coming of age story. It is a look into the lives of those struggling to understand what is happening to them. It is a story about the awful grace of God and the ordinary grace of God. When his sister's body is found, the story becomes a mystery as Frank tries to unravel the relationships that would cause one to take the life of another.
The author has given readers much to think about in this novel. How would we face the tragic loss of a loved one at the hands of another?
"Ordinary Grace" is a standalone novel, a project the author has long desired to write. The book is significantly different from his multiple-award-winning Cork O'Connor series. Yet there are links to the thoughtful, carefully structured, series of crime novels. In one sense, for those so inclined, a case can be made that here, Krueger addresses the ultimate mystery. "Ordinary Grace" benefits from everything the author has learned over the years writing the O'Connor novels. It is directly and powerfully written, wasting no words, yet always moving the story ahead at an appropriate pace, depending on the actions of the characters and the plot. "Ordinary Grace" is a novel that will affect readers in unusual, interesting and, quite possibly, surprising ways.
Set in a small community in southern Minnesota in 1961, this is how the story begins: "All the dying that summer began with the death of a child, a boy with golden hair and thick glasses, killed on the railroad tracks outside New Bremen, Minnesota." The narrator is an adult white male, son of the Methodist minister in town. Frank is recalling the momentous events of that bygone summer when he was but thirteen years old, a teen-ager on the cusp of young maturity. The death of that child sets in motion events and revelations of suppressed attitudes that alter the lives and futures of many people in the town. Some of the people affected are important and wealthy, others, as plain and ordinary as one could imagine. Yet everyone in the novel is required to come to terms to greater or lesser degree, with who they are and how they must relate to family, friends, members of their faith, and how they function in the wider yet limited community.
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