About the Author

Terry Gamble is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Michigan. She lives in Sonoma and San Francisco, California.

Reviews

"In this luminous first novel, Gamble ... imparts a remarkable sense of place while launching a searing indictment of prejudice, all the while demonstrating a restrained, understated lyricism that only serves to heighten the novel's power." - Booklist (starred review)
"Luminous..." - BookPage
"Terry Gamble is a gifted writer, elegant, precise, evocative, and humane. Her work is highly intelligent, skillful, and, most important, full of heart and soul. This is beautiful writing." - Anne Lamott
"A beautifully woven story . . . crafted so well that readers will feel the work that went into every page yet find the reading effortlessly enjoyable." - Tampa Tribune
"[An] elegantly written, handsomely constructed debut novel . . . Gamble . . . draws all her characters so skillfully and with such depth that no matter how much you'd like to take sides, it's impossible." - Cincinnati Enquirer

"Luminous..." -- BookPage

Moving from 1945 to 1956 to 1970, this first novel explores issues of race, class, and duty among the summer people on Lake Michigan. The Marches, a prominent family who divide their time between St. Louis and the lake, face adversity when the favorite son is killed in World War II and the surviving son, Woody, returns without a leg and with a drug problem. A family (husband, wife, and daughter) of African American servants make the trip with them, and their social circles change little with their location. In the summer, the family is assisted by a young Native American girl, Rachel, a charity case referred by the local nuns. Before the war, Woody was engaged to Elizabeth, who's having a hard time reconciling herself to marrying a wounded veteran. Rachel has known enough of life to have little sympathy for Woody's self-pity but not enough of servitude to humble herself like the full-time servants. She bullies Woody into healing, and in the process, the two fall in love. By summer's end, Woody is whole enough to marry Elizabeth, and Rachel is too proud to let him know she's expecting. These three characters, plus two sons, are reunited in 1956 to tragic end. By 1970, social mores have changed enough to allow sons born to wealth to avoid military service, while sons born to poverty go off and fight their wars for them. A descendant of a Procter and Gamble cofounder, the author clearly knows the class system of which she writes, and her sympathies lie with the servant classes and not her own. This is not social criticism, however, but a literary work that is not exactly a compelling page-turner but does feature well-drawn characters and engaging prose. Recommended for larger fiction collections.-Debbie Bogenschutz, Cincinnati State Technical & Community Coll. Lib. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.