Finding Caruso - Hardcover

Barnes, Kim

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0399149678 ISBN 13: 9780399149672

Publisher: Marian Wood Books/Putnam, 2003

Synopsis

When an alcohol-related accident claims the lives of their parents, Lee and Buddy sell of their Oklahoma farm and move to northern Idaho, where Lee finds a job playing country music and Buddy falls in love with a woman twice his age. A first novel. 35,000 first printing.

About this title

About the Author:

Kim Barnes is the author of two memoirs-In the Wilderness, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, and Hungry for the World. Her stories and poems have appeared in many literary reviews, including Shenandoah, The Georgia Review, and Folio.

From Publishers Weekly:

The arrival of an older femme fatale in a hardscrabble Idaho town drives a wedge between two young brothers in Barnes's fiction debut, a solid, evocative effort that suffers from some muddled plotting but succeeds because of the author's poignant writing about first love. The story begins in Oklahoma in 1957 with the death of the parents of Buddy and Lee Hope in a car accident. After the funeral, the two boys move so that 25-year-old Lee can look for work to support his 17-year-old brother. Their journey takes them to Snake Junction and the logging camps of Idaho, where Lee, a talented singer, catches on with a band and wows the locals, eventually attracting the attention of an L.A. club owner. Buddy, meanwhile, is smitten when gorgeous Irene Sullivan arrives in town and astoundingly chooses him over handsome, charismatic Lee. But Buddy is overwhelmed by Irene's sophistication, and soon his love turns into jealous obsession. Sullivan, meanwhile, is involved in an effort to help a local Native American boy named Wolfchild who is accused of murder. The three principals in the romantic triangle are well drawn, and Barnes gets plenty of mileage from her unusual backdrop. But problems pop up in the subplot involving Wolfchild, particularly in an unlikely series of scenes in which Buddy encounters Wolfchild after hearing rumors that the boy was involved with Irene. Barnes's rich, multilayered prose makes this an engaging read, and the affair between Irene and Buddy is well rendered despite the flawed storytelling down the stretch.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Marian Wood Books/Putnam
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0399149678
• ISBN 13: 9780399149672
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320