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A Cloud in the Shape of a Girl Jean Thompson 9781501194368 Books

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A Cloud in the Shape of a Girl Jean Thompson 9781501194368 Books

Can the actions of one generation affect the lives of succeeding ones? Should the secrets of parents and grandparents - seemingly so important to them - be exposed by the third generation? And what damage - or help - occurs by exposing them? Author Jean Thompson has written a brilliant book, "A Cloud in the Shape of a Girl", about three generations of a family in a mid-western college town and the actions and secrets that bind them together.

Thompson's story centers on the three generations of women. Evelyn, the grandmother, is a disappointed wife and mother, who always seems to be searching for...something, some place, or somebody else in her life. She married a much older academician and her own hopes of a brilliant teaching career are rather stifled by motherhood and wifehood. She gives birth to a son and a daughter, and that daughter, Laura, repeats her mother's life by also marrying a difficult man and having a daughter and son. Laura's daughter, Grace, is a mid-20's college graduate who is sort of drifting through life. Grace is drifting, as is her younger brother, Michael, who, in addition, is saddled with an addiction to drugs. Oh, and did I mention that their father, Gabe, is an alcoholic? Pretty grim family, I think most readers would say.

But they're not "grim", in Jean Thompson's able hands. She gives so much nuance to her six main characters that all are seen as individuals who you might know...or even be a member of your own family. Thompson doesn't feel sorry for her characters, so the reader doesn't. Thompson's book is not action-packed. Oh, people die but the others mourn and move on, often accompanied by the secrets these deaths have exposed. It's what the family members do with those secrets that makes Jean Thompson's book such a winner.


Tags : A Cloud in the Shape of a Girl [Jean Thompson] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. <b>“There’s not a false note in this powerful, beautifully crafted exploration of the trade-offs in women’s lives.” — People</i></b><BR> <BR> <b>From National Book Award finalist and the New York Times</i> bestselling author of The Year We Left Home</i> comes a moving family saga about three generations of women who struggle to find freedom and happiness in their small Midwestern college town.</b><BR><BR> A Cloud in the Shape of a Girl</i> is a poignant novel about three generations of the Wise family—Evelyn,Jean Thompson,A Cloud in the Shape of a Girl,Simon & Schuster,1501194364,Domestic fiction,Domestic fiction.,FICTION Contemporary Women,FICTION Contemporary Women.,FICTION Literary.,Families - Midwest,Mothers and daughters,Self-realization in women,Spouses,Women - Midwest,AMERICAN NOVEL AND SHORT STORY,FICTION Literary,FICTION Small Town & Rural,FICTION Women,Fiction,Fiction-Literary,FictionSmall Town & Rural,FictionWomen,GENERAL,General Adult,Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945),United States,Jean Thompson; A Cloud in the Shape of a Girl; midwest; midwestern America; small town; novel; The Year We Left Home; She Poured Out Her Heart; The Humanity Project; City Boy; Wide Blue Wonder; The Woman Driverl; My Wisdom; The Witch and Other Tales Re-Told; Do Not Deny Me; Throw Like a Girl; Who Do You Love; Little Face and Other Stories; The Gasoline Wars; National Book Award; National Book Award finalist; National Book Award longlist; University of Illinois; Champaign; Urbana; Pushcart Prize; Best American Short Stories,Jean Thompson; A Cloud in the Shape of a Girl; midwest; midwestern America; small town; novel; The Year We Left Home; She Poured Out Her Heart; The Humanity Project; City Boy; Wide Blue Wonder; The Woman Driverl; My Wisdom; The Witch and Other Tales Re-Told; Do Not Deny Me; Throw Like a Girl; Who Do You Love; Little Face and Other Stories; The Gasoline Wars; National Book Award; National Book Award finalist; National Book Award longlist; University of Illinois; Champaign; Urbana; Pushcart Prize; Best American Short Stories;

A Cloud in the Shape of a Girl Jean Thompson 9781501194368 Books Reviews

For those who aren’t familiar with Jean Thompson, a word of warning—her books do not have page-turning action or swiftly moving plots (at least the ones I’ve read). Instead, like this one, her novels are character-based, and her style is often meditative. When something dramatic happens, it isn’t like a bomb going off, but rather like the bottom fell out. She does not pander to boilerplate blockbusters, or pad her story with popular platitudes. Thompson’s narrative is subtle, intelligent, with themes that compel you to examine our culture.

Is agency governed by choice or by decree? Does history determine your future? As women, are we bound to roles passed down by our mothers? How can we fix our lives when mired in a damaged, dysfunctional family? In this story of three generations of women, spanning over 80 years, the questions of legacy and expectations—both your own and your parents’—are addressed.

Three generations of Wise women, in a small midwestern town, with their various ambitions and stifled longings, are keenly portrayed in this story. Evelyn, well educated, taught college during WW II, taking advantage of the vacancies when men went off to war. She was an unconventional thinker and assertive achiever who married late and had children even later. She capitulated to choices against her nature, and paid for it with growing resentment and ill-disposed mothering. Evelyn lived in the shadow of her husband—the conduct of the good wife, while she was devoured by custom and housework.

Evelyn’s daughter, Laura, was unlike her mother; she was obliging and pliable and sought love and marriage. Eventually, she settled for an unruly and moody alcoholic, and took a backseat to his will. Her minor career offered meager satisfaction, and she tried to be the glue in her family. Laura coddled her self-destructive son and took her daughter, Grace, for granted; she expected Grace to be accommodating to the men in the family. Now in her twenties, Grace wants more for herself, but she’s stuck in a matrilineal legacy. She carries her burden with dread, and is caught in a battle of wills.

The pace moves gently as the characters deepen and troubles increase, but there’s an urgency growling subtly beneath the narrative. It’s a pull and push, a tug of war, a war of the women in the quagmire of history.

“And yet history shifted underneath your feet…The present was a dizzy perch that every so often began to spin and slide…You held onto your life with both hands, you told yourself to pay attention to this moment, the here and now. But one minute passed into the next, and at some point you looked back and everything was over and people called it history.”
But what a tragedy...
Good read but a little too much angst.
Jean Thompson’s novel A CLOUD IN THE SHAPE OF A GIRL traces the history of three generations of women in a small Midwestern college town, each struggling to find themselves. Each taking similar paths.

Grandmother, mother, and daughter are motivated all right. Perhaps they are intimidated by their belief that society is holding them back. Or is it their family? Their foremothers? What are they sacrificing for the sake of happiness? Regardless of what is holding them back, their desire is palpable.

Are the women doomed to repeat the history they haven’t learned? Thompson gives us much to contemplate in the profiles of Evelyn, Laura and young Grace.
Can the actions of one generation affect the lives of succeeding ones? Should the secrets of parents and grandparents - seemingly so important to them - be exposed by the third generation? And what damage - or help - occurs by exposing them? Author Jean Thompson has written a brilliant book, "A Cloud in the Shape of a Girl", about three generations of a family in a mid-western college town and the actions and secrets that bind them together.

Thompson's story centers on the three generations of women. Evelyn, the grandmother, is a disappointed wife and mother, who always seems to be searching for...something, some place, or somebody else in her life. She married a much older academician and her own hopes of a brilliant teaching career are rather stifled by motherhood and wifehood. She gives birth to a son and a daughter, and that daughter, Laura, repeats her mother's life by also marrying a difficult man and having a daughter and son. Laura's daughter, Grace, is a mid-20's college graduate who is sort of drifting through life. Grace is drifting, as is her younger brother, Michael, who, in addition, is saddled with an addiction to drugs. Oh, and did I mention that their father, Gabe, is an alcoholic? Pretty grim family, I think most readers would say.

But they're not "grim", in Jean Thompson's able hands. She gives so much nuance to her six main characters that all are seen as individuals who you might know...or even be a member of your own family. Thompson doesn't feel sorry for her characters, so the reader doesn't. Thompson's book is not action-packed. Oh, people die but the others mourn and move on, often accompanied by the secrets these deaths have exposed. It's what the family members do with those secrets that makes Jean Thompson's book such a winner.