Stiltsville
Release date: 2010 / 334 pages
Synopsis (from the jacket cover): One sunny morning in 1969, near the end of her first trip to Miami, twenty-six-year-old Frances Ellerby finds herself in a place called Stiltsville, a community of houses built on a pilings in the middle of Biscayne Bay.
First Sentence: On a Sunday morning in late July, at the end of my first-ever visit to Miami, I took a cab from my hotel to Snapper Creek marina to join a woman named Marse Heiger, whom I’d met the day before.
Review: This novel quietly swept me up and I finished the last page dissolved in tears. The first section — which occurs in 1969 — is so subtle that I wasn’t sure exactly who to focus on or which characters would become substantial. Then, by the mid-point of the novel, I realized I was following the arc of a marriage, the arc of a life, and that events were happening similarly to how they unfold in life. The narrative follows Frances — the character mentioned in the synopsis — from her late-twenties to her fifties. The novel opens with her meeting her husband and then meanders through their intertwined lives.
When I finished, I wanted to read the first section again, after I knew that Frances and Dennis would be the focus, now that they were no longer strangers, because I could hardly believe they were ever unknown to me. There was a certain distance in the first section — and maybe carried into the second — that was hardly imagineable by the end.
Throughout, I admired Daniel’s deft use of verb tenses — even though the narrative moved forward chronologically, at times Frances would peek ahead or behind and the effect was unnervingly real. Throughout, Frances is stalwart and authentic — occasionally ruminative — but also quite common-sensical. While I wouldn’t say I loved Frances, I did enjoy her company and found her to be a very sympathetic character. Certain thoughts or observations were particularly interesting, like when she and her eleven-year-old daughter debate whether or not she should start shaving her legs:
“After I certain point, I wanted to tell her, your whole life will be like this — more or less the same forever, the same sadnesses and joys returning again and again. But Margo did not need to know that her mother had difficult distinguishing between the trivial and the all-encompassing, that a person could so easily sidestep from shaving to despair.”
Beyond the rich characterization, the setting of Miami soaks the pages of this novel. I love novels that have an overpowering sense of place, novels that allow me to live in another setting for the course of a few hundred pages, that introduce me to a town or state that I would not choose to live in, but feel honored to vicariously experience not as a tourist but as a resident. Stiltsville does this so well with Miami:
“Why Miami? I thought. Because anywhere else, the islands would have seemed garish and bizarre, and Christo would’ve seemed like a loon. Because a century ago, swampland enveloped this shoreline, before developers drained it and built a city from the bog. Becuase our piece of Florida was invented, not discovered. Like the Surrounded Islands, Miami was at once impossible and inspired, like a magic trick practiced for hours, performed for seconds.”
So, I do recommend this novel — and while it would not be an obvious choice for discussion, I believe book clubs would find enough to discuss for an hour or two, as well. Interested? Drop me a comment and I’ll choose a winner soon!
For other reviews, check out the following sites:
Monday, September 13th: Joyfully Retired
Wednesday, September 15th: Simply Stacie
Friday, September 17th: Reading at the Beach
Monday, September 20th: Books and Cooks
Wednesday, September 22nd: Raging Bibliomania
Thursday, September 23rd: Bermuda Onion
Monday, September 27th: The Book Faery Reviews
Tuesday, September 28th: Book Club Classics!
Wednesday, September 29th: My Random Acts of Reading
Thursday, September 30th: Devourer of Books
Monday, October 4th: Pudgy Penguin Perusals
Wednesday, October 6th: A Bookish Way of Life
Thursday, October 7th: Luxury Reading
Monday, October 11th: Mockingbird Hill Cottage
I would love the chance to win this. I enjoyed the mother’s thoughts around her daughter’s beginning of shaving her legs, and remember my own passage into that rite. Feeling like now I am a real woman. I had never, as a mother considered those musings, as Frances had. I thoroughly enjoyed this review.
Thanks for the opportunity!
I think this would be another wonderful book to add to my collection of “Kristen books” (as I fondly call them)…Thanks again for the chance to win another beautifully written book.
By the way, I got Waxed! YAY!
Renee
I would love to win this, as it sounds like a novel to become totally immersed in.
I enjoyed reading your review! Such beautiful language:
… the setting of Miami soaks the pages of this novel.
I love novels that have an overpowering sense of place, novels that allow me to live in another setting for the course of a few hundred pages, that introduce me to a town or state that I would not choose to live in, but feel honored to vicariously experience not as a tourist but as a resident.
your words make me want to “vicariously experience” too! So, please consider me for your giveaway.
Kristen, another excellent review. I’m so glad you got swept up in this one. Thank you so much for being on the tour!
As you were describing the story, I thought that it would actually be great for discussion in the reading group I belong to. Thank you for the review and a chance to win a copy.
So many fun comments today!! Thank you, everyone… I”m glad my review represented this wonderful novel well, too! I’ll choose a lucky winner soon
Would love to be considered. Thank you for such great reviews!
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Great review! Interesting story! Would love to read it!
It sounds like a very interesting book.
pippirose59 at gmail dot com