|
 Amazon.com
A Common Life is a trip back in time for
fans of "the little town with the big heart."
Somewhere between the second and third volumes of Jan
Karon's Mitford Years series, dyed-in-the-wool bachelor
Father Timothy Kavanagh and his next-door neighbor Cynthia
Coppersmith tied the knot. The author left it to readers'
imaginations to fill in the blanks. In this delightful
story, Karon paints a complete picture of the events
surrounding the wedding of Mitford's best-loved couple,
and chronicles the poignant and often hilarious reactions
to the nuptial news by the tightly knit North Carolina
community.
All the details cherished by those
who are enchanted by weddings are offered here, from
the color of the bridal outfit (aquamarine) to the choice
of flowers (virgin's bower and hydrangeas). When the
wedding bells finally ring, the pews are packed with
the people who make Mitford special: ornery Uncle Billy,
delightful Miss Sadie, indispensable Louella, and the
cantankerous Emma Newland. And there's not a dry eye
in the house when Father Tim's problematic foster child
Dooley Barlowe sings for the two people who love him
the most.
A Common Life is not just
a wedding story. It's also an intimate portrait of the
unfolding love between Cynthia and the shy Father Tim,
complete with fears and hesitations, professions of
commitment, and Barnabas the dog delivering love letters.
But there's nothing heavy-handed here. The tensions
don't run any higher than wondering if Cynthia will
make it to the wedding on time after getting locked
inside her own bathroom, or guessing if Esther will
make her famous three-layer orange marmalade cake for
the reception. Told in the warm, down-home style that
Karon has built her reputation on, A Common Life
is sweet without being saccharine, charming without
being cloying. It's an invitation to a literary reunion
of the best kind, and like all weddings, it will probably
coax a few tears and plenty of smiles. --Cindy Crosby
From Publishers Weekly
Fans of Mitford, Karon's delightful fictional village
in western North Carolina, will be thrilled with this
newest installment, which relates an episode she skipped
over in her earlier books: Father Tim and Cynthia's
wedding. (He proposed at the end of the second Mitford
book, and at the beginning of the third, they were already
happily married.) Finally, readers get to see the stunned
expressions of most Mitford residents when they hear
Father Tim has actually popped the question. Readers
learn about Cynthia's anxieties over the pending nuptials,
share Esther Bolick's delight when Cynthia asks her
to bake her famous orange marmalade cake and hum along
as the Lord's Chapel parish belts out "Praise my
soul the King of Heaven" at the ceremony. And as
usual, Karon works in a few snippets of convincing mountain
dialect. While Mitford die-hards will welcome this installment,
however, the unconverted won't find much to bring them
around; one has to already know Karon's eccentric characters,
with all their foibles, to fully appreciate the book.
Even Mitford devotees may be a touch disappointed that
the trademark lessons about Christian faith that Karon
weaves so seamlessly into most of her tales are more
or less absent from this slim volume.
|
