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3.67 AVERAGE
3.67 AVERAGE
I should have loved this. Rural born Southerner with ambition grappling with his place in the world among family and friends who are far less liberal than he is. But ultimately I really did not like it. I think the ending is bad. It's telegraphed from every direction. And I didn't feel a whole lot of connection with the character - perhaps it's too close to home for me.
This book feels very self-conscious, very MFA project, very first novel. I think Lee Cole has more to say but for the moment I'm kind of shrug emoji on him.
This book feels very self-conscious, very MFA project, very first novel. I think Lee Cole has more to say but for the moment I'm kind of shrug emoji on him.
4.5/ My favorite debut of the year (so far). I loved this meandering millennial love story of a young man caught between two worlds, often an outsider in both. Lee Cole does a fabulous job showing us the urban/hipster gentrifying sections of Kentucky as well as the tucked away towns rife with abandoned plants and factories. He shows an equal level of compassion and understanding for the folks in both worlds-- but also sees their faults and shortcomings.
I recently revisited Lily King's Writers and Lovers, this book treads similar water, though from a male perspective. The writing was swell, giving us lots of Owen's interiority coupled with sharp observations of the people and world around him. This is Jo Ann Beard meets Marilynne Robinson meets Sally Rooney. Look forward to more work from Cole in the future.
I recently revisited Lily King's Writers and Lovers, this book treads similar water, though from a male perspective. The writing was swell, giving us lots of Owen's interiority coupled with sharp observations of the people and world around him. This is Jo Ann Beard meets Marilynne Robinson meets Sally Rooney. Look forward to more work from Cole in the future.
This book took me forever to read. It never really grabbed me. The writing was good. It was just different than I was expecting. Neither of the main characters Owen or Alma were people I found likable. They just seemed like self absorbed 20 somethings.
This was a 3.5 for me. I liked it, but it didn’t grab me like I hoped it would and it took me forever to read.
emotional
funny
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This book is awful and frought with geographical inconsistencies that make it difficult to read. The author spends more time trying to prove their knowledge of Louisville than developing a story.
First appeared at https://www.thenewdorkreviewofbooks.com/2022/03/groundskeeping-by-lee-cole-love-is.html
Fair warning to take this absolutely glowing review with just the tiniest grain of salt. That's because Lee Cole's debut novel Groundskeeping is an absolute wheelhouse book for me, so there's almost no chance I wasn't going to love it. And love it, I did!
It's a campus novel. It's a love story. It's an examination of class and politics. It's a look at how writers are inspired to write what they write. And it's all narrated by a guy from a small conservative rural town trying to punch his way up in the world. Yeah, there's a lot going on here, but it works. Cole is a deeply astute writer and all these ingredients of story combine to create a richly satisfying dish.
The story is this: Owen is 28 and drifting. He lives in this rural Kentucky town with his grandfather and Uncle Cort and works as a groundskeeper at the local small college. Still with aspirations of being a writer after crashing and drifting a bit, the job allows him to take an English class, a first step to getting his life back on track. Then, he meets Alma, 26, an already medium-successful poet and novelist who is a writer-in-residence for the year at the college. Sparks fly!
But Alma's background -- her parents emigrated from Bosnia to escape the war when she young, she's a Muslim though non-practicing, and she attended Princeton -- is very different from Owen's. Owen's parents, though he's mildly estranged from both (hence why he's living with his grandfather) are both divorced and remarried, both evangelical Christians, and very conservative. Alma's parents, immigrants, doctors, well-educated, are...not those things. They're two families, both alike in dignity, but both skeptical of their children's choice of partner.
The story is set in 2016 and all around Owen's and Alma's rural Kentucky town, Trump is ascendent. Though Owen and Alma are both appalled by this development, their different backgrounds create its own tension. Owen has a mild inferiority complex, always wondering if Alma looks down on him, and bristles when she ask him about things like his past drug use, etc. Even in (or especially in?) this day and age, can two people from such different origins make it work?
As I read, I felt about this book about how I feel about all books I'm connecting with. I didn't want it to end. In fact. let's let Cole himself explain what this is like (in the context of Owen meeting Alma for the first time):
“I felt the competing desires, as I often did when meeting someone new, to know everything at once and to save it all for later. It was like the feeling one has reading a good book, the sensation of being propelled toward the end and at the same time wishing to linger.”
That's not a particularly original sentiment, I realize. But just the way Cole writes these sentences illustrates that point so clearly and deftly. It's a good representation of his style, his perceptiveness, and why I loved reading this.
This novel first arrived on my radar when I noticed blurbs from both Ann Patchett and Richard Russo, two of my all-time favorite writers. So naturally I was going to check it out. If you are one of the many people, like me, who was disappointed by the latest Sally Rooney novel, try this one instead. The feel is similar, but this is so much better.
Fair warning to take this absolutely glowing review with just the tiniest grain of salt. That's because Lee Cole's debut novel Groundskeeping is an absolute wheelhouse book for me, so there's almost no chance I wasn't going to love it. And love it, I did!
It's a campus novel. It's a love story. It's an examination of class and politics. It's a look at how writers are inspired to write what they write. And it's all narrated by a guy from a small conservative rural town trying to punch his way up in the world. Yeah, there's a lot going on here, but it works. Cole is a deeply astute writer and all these ingredients of story combine to create a richly satisfying dish.
The story is this: Owen is 28 and drifting. He lives in this rural Kentucky town with his grandfather and Uncle Cort and works as a groundskeeper at the local small college. Still with aspirations of being a writer after crashing and drifting a bit, the job allows him to take an English class, a first step to getting his life back on track. Then, he meets Alma, 26, an already medium-successful poet and novelist who is a writer-in-residence for the year at the college. Sparks fly!
But Alma's background -- her parents emigrated from Bosnia to escape the war when she young, she's a Muslim though non-practicing, and she attended Princeton -- is very different from Owen's. Owen's parents, though he's mildly estranged from both (hence why he's living with his grandfather) are both divorced and remarried, both evangelical Christians, and very conservative. Alma's parents, immigrants, doctors, well-educated, are...not those things. They're two families, both alike in dignity, but both skeptical of their children's choice of partner.
The story is set in 2016 and all around Owen's and Alma's rural Kentucky town, Trump is ascendent. Though Owen and Alma are both appalled by this development, their different backgrounds create its own tension. Owen has a mild inferiority complex, always wondering if Alma looks down on him, and bristles when she ask him about things like his past drug use, etc. Even in (or especially in?) this day and age, can two people from such different origins make it work?
As I read, I felt about this book about how I feel about all books I'm connecting with. I didn't want it to end. In fact. let's let Cole himself explain what this is like (in the context of Owen meeting Alma for the first time):
“I felt the competing desires, as I often did when meeting someone new, to know everything at once and to save it all for later. It was like the feeling one has reading a good book, the sensation of being propelled toward the end and at the same time wishing to linger.”
That's not a particularly original sentiment, I realize. But just the way Cole writes these sentences illustrates that point so clearly and deftly. It's a good representation of his style, his perceptiveness, and why I loved reading this.
This novel first arrived on my radar when I noticed blurbs from both Ann Patchett and Richard Russo, two of my all-time favorite writers. So naturally I was going to check it out. If you are one of the many people, like me, who was disappointed by the latest Sally Rooney novel, try this one instead. The feel is similar, but this is so much better.
I read this for my book club. It had been on a few of our lists. I’m not sure I would have finished it if not for book club. The writing is engaging enough that I was able to read stay into it, but not a lot happens. This is a bit of a coming of age story of a man who is nearly 30. As a woman who has long had her shit together (thanks to enormous privilege, no doubt), I did not relate to our protagonist. I do think it’s incredible he forged a new path away from his earlier difficulties, but that isn’t the story or focus at all (and his gal certainly doesn’t see it that way—he has to comfort *her* about his difficult past).
Everything is copy, but also he’s a baby man who took advantage of private moments.
Everything is copy, but also he’s a baby man who took advantage of private moments.