Greenberg, Joanne (Goldenberg) - James R. Frakes
JAMES R. FRAKES
Few experiences are more calculated to shrivel a reviewer's heart than to read a publisher's blurb describing a new novel as "an American saga…." So it's a pleasure to discover that ["Founder's Praise"] triumphs over the epithet.
Of course, there's still the problem of the "three generations," but Joanne Greenberg … keeps the lines clear and the relationships functional throughout. And the historical sweep never calls exhausting attention to itself, World War I passing in a single paragraph. But the Dust-Bowl years are dwelt on obsessively, mote by relentless mote. And rightly so, for out of the death of the land in this southeastern Colorado farming community blossoms the "vision of the Presence" granted to Edgar Bisset and transforming him from a silent withdrawn man to an eloquent and joyful giver of life and hope. The transformation is rendered with the kind of open-eyed respect and tenderness with which Sherwood Anderson approached...
[The entire page is 513 words long]
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