Local Knowledge
by Liza Gyllenhaal
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Book Summary Information
Author: Liza GyllenhaalEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2009-01-06
ISBN: 0451225783
Number of pages: 368
Publisher: NAL Trade
Book Reviews of Local Knowledge
Book Review: This is what you need to read on the beach during your winter break in Florida.
Summary: 5 Stars
If Norah Jones recorded a CD of Bruce Springsteen songs, it would come out something like the beautiful music of Liza Gyllenhaal's Local Knowledge.
A contemporary bildungsroman set in not-so-rural-anymore Red River in upstate New York, Gyllenhaal has Maddie Alden tell her own story and that of the two men in and around her life - her husband, Paul and his best friend Luke Barnett. The driving force of the narrative is the encounter Maddie has with Anne Zeller, her first big score as a real-estate agent. Emboldened by her success and flattered by the attention from this effortlessly elegant New York City "businesswoman on sabbatical" Maddie lives through a Berkshires summer like no other she has had. The events compel Maddie to re-examine in detail what led up to this life-changing season and how it would end.
Gyllenhaal's method is to have Maddie take turns with two different stories - one in more or less present time and the other starting with Maddie's formative years and moving forward - until the two strands make contact in real time. The descriptions are rich in detail and Maddie's is an admirably honest voice. It's through her that we hear about what may lie just under the surface of all those charming small towns that prosperous urbanites have claimed as their second homes; of the lives made desperate by the collapse of local agriculture; of the the inevitable sale of generations-owned lands to people who couldn't tell an elm from a maple. Maddie is both particpant in and witness to the transformation of her home town.
Gyllenhaal writes with limpid precision. Maddie doesn't miss much and she also knows she's not perfect. This makes for a very effective narrator. There are beautiful passages all over this book. It takes a writer of Gyllenhaal's abilities to keep it real and yet manage to find the precious poetry hiding under the rubble.
Summary of Local Knowledge
From an exciting debut author?a novel about three people haunted by the mistakes of their past and their plunge into an uncertain future.
Maddie Alden has always longed for more than her small town could offer. Now that it?s being overrun by wealthy New Yorkers looking for a respite from the city, Maddie has gotten herself a lucrative new job in real estate. And her first sale brings her a charismatic new friend who is everything Maddie longs to be. Little does Maddie realize that the glamorous Anne will shake up her quiet marriage? and will force Maddie to face the truth about the past, and the terrible secret she shares with her husband and his best friend?
Maddie Alden has always longed for more than her small town could offer. Now that it?s being overrun by wealthy New Yorkers looking for a respite from the city, Maddie has gotten herself a lucrative new job in real estate. And her first sale brings her a charismatic new friend who is everything Maddie longs to be. Little does Maddie realize that the glamorous Anne will shake up her quiet marriage? and will force Maddie to face the truth about the past, and the terrible secret she shares with her husband and his best friend?
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