evnegia 's review for:

A Map of the World by Jane Hamilton

3.0

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Alice and Howard live on the last family run dairy farm in Prairie Center, WI. Though the cookie cutter subdivisions are fast encroaching, the couple is content in raising their daughters in peace. Only Alice feels the watchful, judgmental stares of the townspeople. The book begins from Alice’s point of view. She is self conscious, always questioning her ability, her patience, and her will to be a mother. About 50 pages in her best friend’ daughter drowns in her pond under Alice’s supervision. What would normally be the main conflict of a story, here is just the beginning. It’s a spark that starts something oddly more traumatic than the death of a 2 year old girl. This is an engaging lesson on how misplaced guilt can destroy innocents, of how families can change over the course of suffering, of how the guilty are not always guilty, the innocent not always innocent, and about the long road of forgiveness.
Flipping between perspectives of Alice and Howard, Hamilton creates a couple who are deeply connected, dependent on each other, in Love even, and yet unable to share their feelings and on the brink of loosing their marriage. After reading a slew of romance novels, their relationship seemed painfully realistic.