Scan barcode
A review by lisa_mc
The Excellent Lombards by Jane Hamilton
4.0
One might think that as we have moved from an agrarian, aristocratic society to a technological, modern one, the importance of land and inheritance would cease to be such a common theme in novels. But even in the 21st century, money and heritage -- and the people who feel entitled to either or both -- still make for fascinating plotlines.
Jane Hamilton’s “The Excellent Lombards” centers on a Wisconsin family and its apple orchard over several decades. While many novels with this scope are sprawling epics, Hamilton keeps a tight focus on the Lombards themselves, their alliances and grudges, their hidden histories and recent secrets, their departures and arrivals.
Told from the point of view of Mary Frances Lombard, a child at the beginning who grows to young adulthood over the course of the novel, the book reveals - first from the naive viewpoint of a preteen, later from the more nuanced perspective of an educated young adult - the complexities of the family tree. The father of Mary Frances and her brother, William, runs the orchard with his cousin, Sherwood, who lives with his wife and children and their eccentric Aunt May Hill in what Mary Frances refers to as the “manor house.” But more relatives exist, and the idea of inheritance and division are never too far out of mind for many of the Lombards. Growing up together, Mary Frances and William are both friends and rivals of Sherwood’s children, whichever suits the situation.
And in the family, there’s an almost English connection with the idea of the “estate,” the family holding, which has a primal pull on its inhabitants. “I started to wonder,” a young Mary Frances muses in her bunk bed, “if a place might make you more than you were. Was that possible? … And then, without that place, say you lost it, or couldn’t get back to it, or couldn’t stay there for long, it could turn out that you were really weren’t much of anyone.”
Hamilton has always been a master storyteller, and “The Excellent Lombards” is a story masterfully told. She doesn’t giving too much away at once, developing characters and places through well-chosen details, linking the past with the present smoothly, and keeping the story moving in such a way that readers may not realize how much they’ve learned - and how much they care about these people - until several dozen pages have gone by.
Jane Hamilton’s “The Excellent Lombards” centers on a Wisconsin family and its apple orchard over several decades. While many novels with this scope are sprawling epics, Hamilton keeps a tight focus on the Lombards themselves, their alliances and grudges, their hidden histories and recent secrets, their departures and arrivals.
Told from the point of view of Mary Frances Lombard, a child at the beginning who grows to young adulthood over the course of the novel, the book reveals - first from the naive viewpoint of a preteen, later from the more nuanced perspective of an educated young adult - the complexities of the family tree. The father of Mary Frances and her brother, William, runs the orchard with his cousin, Sherwood, who lives with his wife and children and their eccentric Aunt May Hill in what Mary Frances refers to as the “manor house.” But more relatives exist, and the idea of inheritance and division are never too far out of mind for many of the Lombards. Growing up together, Mary Frances and William are both friends and rivals of Sherwood’s children, whichever suits the situation.
And in the family, there’s an almost English connection with the idea of the “estate,” the family holding, which has a primal pull on its inhabitants. “I started to wonder,” a young Mary Frances muses in her bunk bed, “if a place might make you more than you were. Was that possible? … And then, without that place, say you lost it, or couldn’t get back to it, or couldn’t stay there for long, it could turn out that you were really weren’t much of anyone.”
Hamilton has always been a master storyteller, and “The Excellent Lombards” is a story masterfully told. She doesn’t giving too much away at once, developing characters and places through well-chosen details, linking the past with the present smoothly, and keeping the story moving in such a way that readers may not realize how much they’ve learned - and how much they care about these people - until several dozen pages have gone by.