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Overview
The year is 1931 and Lucy Richards Arnold - mother to a demandingly precocious four-year-old son - is in rural West Texas, teaching in the school where her husband, Josh, is principal. While trying to win over a community that seems to have little respect for formal education, Lucy and Josh are also struggling to make a success of their neglected farm during a drought and the bleak hard times of the Great Depression. Out of this barren landscape rich and colorful characters emerge as if from a fertile land: above all there is Josh, impulsive and contemplative, passionate and wise, who loves in ways few men are capable of loving and whose only fear is losing Lucy; there is Meg, a fifteen-year-old, who is able to hear the grass grow and smell out rattlers and whose ardent heart and natural wisdom are focused solely on keeping her small charge, John Patrick, safe; there is Mueller, who had always wanted to "look in a book and know what was in it" and who had hoped his sons would take a liking to the new principal; there is Bud Foster, a down-and-out cowboy who knows that "sometimes a man has to go on down the road and find something"; and there is Miriah, with a magic all her own, who waits confidently for her husband to return from the arms of another woman. Before the year's end, Lucy is faced with a loss of such magnitude that she must struggle to find a way to recapture the joy in her very existence. With the same wry sense of humor and tender but never sentimental touch that captivated readers of the first two best-selling books in the trilogy, The Train to Estelline and A Place Called Sweet Shrub, Jane Roberts Wood's Dance a Little Longer delivers what the title promises - a dance of the heart. It is Jane Roberts Wood at her finest.Evoking the same small-town charm as Leaving Cold Sassy and Fried Green Tomatoes, this poignant conclusion to the Lucy Richards trilogy, that began with The Train to Estelline and continued in A Place Called Sweet Shrub, draws the reader into a Depression-era world of marriage, motherhood, teaching, and life in rural Texas.
Editorials
Publishers Weekly -
Wood has a rare gift for transcending the ordinary and this heartwarming continuation of her earlier novels, A Place Called Sweet Shrub and The Train to Estelline , is no exception. The year is 1931 and the Arnolds have moved to Deere County in West Texas from East Texas; Josh is to be principal of the local school and Lucy will teach first grade. The Arnolds are not given a universal welcome; there is an element in town hostile to all educators and Josh's predecessor met with an unfortunate accident which resulted in his precipitous departure. But secure in their commitment to each other, to their son and to education, Josh and Lucy are determined to make a success of their new lives. Then a summer of grueling work clearing fields and preparing a new home gives way to unforeseen trials during the school year and a tragedy that threatens both their solid marriage and Lucy's sanity. Wood's narration is seamless, and she is especially masterful in creating believable characters, whether they're her protagonists or secondary figures like the befuddled athletic coach torn between two women or the illiterate curmudgeon who becomes Lucy's advocate. This is a touching, often humorous novel and a vivid portrait of the scorching solitude of West Texas. Oct.Library Journal
Josh, Lucy, and John Patrick Arnold have come to west Texas in 1931. Lucy's joy in her new home, her confidence in Josh's abilities, and her commitment to her four-year-old son seems boundless. Even her fear of the Depression victims, desperate strangers who straggle to her door, cannot overcome her love of life. When John Patrick's death snuffs out that joy, threatening Lucy and Josh's marriage, one of the strangers who comes to their door helps to call them back to love and life. Readers of Wood's previous novels, A Place Called Sweet Shrub Delacorte, 1990 and The Train to Estelline EC Temple, 1987, will enjoy getting reacquainted with Lucy. But this book stands alone. In the struggle of poverty-stricken families, in the lost and homeless people whom Lucy and Josh help, and in the couple's recovery of a new hope strengthened by friendship, this book is a witness to the tenacity with which life clings to people, and they to it. A good story.-- Marcia Dorey, Northwest Missouri State Univ. Lib., Maryville Short StoriesLibrary Journal
Written in 1993, 1990, and 1987, respectively, these novels are known as the Lucy Richards trilogy in honor of their central character. Spanning the years from 1911 to 1931, the story follows Lucy's life as a young school teacher in west Texas through marriage, childbirth, and the Great Depression. Through all the hardships, her indomitable spirit wins out. Good stories with a strong woman in the lead. Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.\Book Details
Published
July 1, 2000
Publisher
University of North Texas Press,U.S.
Pages
218
Format
Paperback
ISBN
9781574410808