Moving Serafina
by Bob Cherry
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Book Summary Information
Author: Bob CherryEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2007-08-28
ISBN: 0875653561
Number of pages: 354
Publisher: Texas Christian University Press
Book Reviews of Moving Serafina
Book Review: How Does The Heart Fare?
Summary: 5 Stars
As a reader, there is no end to the turning of pages. Sometimes we find elegance in the prose, sometimes mystery. The variety of experience is vast, no doubt of that. But what I look for as a reader, every time I pick up a new book, hold it just to feel its weight, carefully open it to the title page, is to discover, one more time, how the human heart fares through all of this.
In the reading of, "Moving Serafina," we encounter a man guilty of neglect. Clay's guilt is enough that for some it would be unendurable. But in this book, the human heart is strong, and Clay's friends remain loyal with a compassion that doesn't need to be spoken. A place was provided, when Clay needed to bring his wife into town to be close to her doctor. His friends were there when he buried her.
Perhaps loyalty is compassion. Both are heart rendered and present as Clay makes amends for the neglect that had separated his own child from her mother. The same qualities guide the actions of Clay and his friends as they easily distinguish between what is legal and what is humane and have no hesitance in coming to the aid of a young Mexican woman who has lost her child. Loyalty and compassion guide the spirits of these twentieth century West Texans as they face the realities of water shortage and corporate greed, and the need to protect the resources for those with whom they share the land. Their strength is in their consistency. The same courage that molds their relationships in the community guides their decision making when they face the encroachment of outsiders who would endanger their way of life.
The more time I spend with this book, the more respect I have for Clay's way of being, his truthful acceptance of error, and yet his willingness to let life continue its unfolding. Clay acknowledges the past; he sees the threats of social change, but he lives every mile he drives his old pick up truck truly in the present.
"Moving Serafina" is the work of a skilled novelist who moves us along a path of commitment through the resolution of old wounds, to the meeting of new challenges and the establishment of new patterns. Bob Cherry represents once more in this novel, as he has in all of his work, that the qualities of the heart are reliable guides, and that here, in the little town of Solitario, the heart survives to create a new day.
Summary of Moving Serafina
Late in life, Clayton Elliot faces long-deferred hard choices. Circumstances force him to bury his recently deceased wife, Adelita, in the little West Texas border town of Solitario instead of next to their three-year-old daughter on their hardpan ranch. To pay for Adelita's cancer treatments, Clayton sold this marginal ranchland to water developers.By reuniting Serafina with her mother in Solitario, Clayton hopes to assuage his guilt about her death twenty-five years earlier. However, whether Clayton moves Serafina immediately or ignores the contracted deadline, either act will trigger drilling into the aquifer for water. His lifelong friends are vehemently opposed to drilling.
When a young Mexican woman mysteriously enters his life, Clayton must delay his efforts to move Serafina and surreptitiously help this woman who has illegally crossed into Texas. This decision also raises the ire of Clayton's friends.
Throughout the novel, Clayton struggles with both the internal and external borders of his life. And the eccentric characters of Solitario find they, too, must confront their own geographical, psychological, and racial boundaries.
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