Overview
Ian Daley lives with his father, mother, and older brother on a dairy farm in northern Vermont. Times are hard for small farmers and they only get harder when a winter ice storm brings down the power lines and stray voltage gets loose on the farm, randomly shocking humans and animals alike, putting the cows off their milking. Then, one day, Ian's Mom leaves. Ian doesn't know where she's gone or for how long. Ian's dad, always gruff and non-communicative, becomes morose, while his brother checks out. Ian's loneliness grows and grows as he struggles with his mother's abandonment, his own divided loyalties, and his evolving sense of self.
Eugenie Doyle's compelling debut novel lovingly portrays life on a small farm, celebrating its inherent vales and revealing its stark beauty.
Eugenie Doyle is a graduate of the Vermont College MFA program. She has published short stories for adults in various literary journals. She, her husband, twin sons, and daughter grow hay, raspberries, strawberries, and garlic on their 280-acre farm.
After his mother leaves to start a new life elsewhere, eleven-year-old Ian sees changes in his father and in their failing Vermont farm, changes that cannot be ignored.
Synopsis
Ian Daley lives with his father, mother, and older brother on adairy farm in northern Vermont. Times are hard for small farmers, and they only get harder when a winter storm brings down the power lines and "stray voltage" gets loose on the farm, randomly shocking humans and animals alike. Then, one day, Ian's mom leaves. They don't know where she's gone or for how long. Ian's dad won't talk about it-but he never really talks about anything. Now there's extra work and less love around the house. Is there anything Ian can do to make things right?
Publishers Weekly
Like the central image of her novel, Doyle's debut is quietly electrifying. An accumulation of telling details and subtle scenes trace the maturation of sixth grader Ian Daley, the second-born son in a family of Vermont dairy farmers, whose mother has recently left them. As Ian tries to make sense of his new life with his gruff, silent father and dismissive brother, Ray, and no mother as buffer between them, he begins to discover his own strengths, especially at school. Ian's teacher asks the class to summarize current events in their own words, and he discovers he "suddenly had things to say and nowhere but school to say them." Doyle's prose gracefully metes out the rhythms of farm life, capturing the silence and the beauty as well as the unrest lurking beneath the surface. For a year, Ian's farm has been blighted by stray voltage, which causes the cows' health to suffer, Ian's family to grow anxious ("Since the start of the stray voltage problem, bad days popped up like beads of sweat, like pimples on Ray's face"), and finally drives Ian's father to a desperate act. Yet Ian finds compassion for the man ("Even when Dad acted like a jerk, Ian was in awe of his [father's] hands and what they could accomplish in a day") and readers may well close this mesmerizing gem of a novel believing, like Ian, that the Vermont landscape itself has the power to heal. Ages 9-14. (Oct.) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.
Editorials
Publishers Weekly
Like the central image of her novel, Doyle's debut is quietly electrifying. An accumulation of telling details and subtle scenes trace the maturation of sixth grader Ian Daley, the second-born son in a family of Vermont dairy farmers, whose mother has recently left them. As Ian tries to make sense of his new life with his gruff, silent father and dismissive brother, Ray, and no mother as buffer between them, he begins to discover his own strengths, especially at school. Ian's teacher asks the class to summarize current events in their own words, and he discovers he "suddenly had things to say and nowhere but school to say them." Doyle's prose gracefully metes out the rhythms of farm life, capturing the silence and the beauty as well as the unrest lurking beneath the surface. For a year, Ian's farm has been blighted by stray voltage, which causes the cows' health to suffer, Ian's family to grow anxious ("Since the start of the stray voltage problem, bad days popped up like beads of sweat, like pimples on Ray's face"), and finally drives Ian's father to a desperate act. Yet Ian finds compassion for the man ("Even when Dad acted like a jerk, Ian was in awe of his [father's] hands and what they could accomplish in a day") and readers may well close this mesmerizing gem of a novel believing, like Ian, that the Vermont landscape itself has the power to heal. Ages 9-14. (Oct.) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.VOYA
After a winter ice storm brings down power lines, many dairy cows on the Vermont farm owned by the Daley family begin failing. The livestock are distressed by stray voltage-electrical charges that linger after being grounded to earth-drying up the family's means of support. This stark novel is told from the viewpoint of eleven-year-old Ian Daley, as he struggles to cope with the calamities that have befallen his family. Ian's father is a gruff, taciturn man, but as his farm slides toward bankruptcy, the elder Daley takes to drink and becomes increasingly morose. Unable to endure, Ian's mother leaves her husband and two sons. Sixteen-year-old Ray has inherited his father's stoicism and seems able to cope with his mother's departure, but young Ian is left emotionally destitute. The sudden disappearances of each farm cat that Ian adopts seem to echo both the random violence of the farmstead's stray voltage and the breakdown of parental support, now absent from Ian's life. In this stern, uncompromising novel, the story is not a despairing one. As if to counteract the stray voltage, another more hopeful symbol runs through in the appearances of the Hale-Bopp comet in the clear winter nights above the farm. At the low ebb of the Daley's fortunes, the comet puts on its most spectacular display, filling Ian with a sense of wonder, and helping to sustain his will to endure a bleak situation. The book is short, simple, and direct, and thus quite approachable for a reluctant reader who is not counting on a cheerful story or a contrived happy ending. VOYA CODES: 4Q 4P M J (Better than most, marred only by occasional lapses; Broad general YA appeal; Middle School, defined as grades 6 to 8; JuniorHigh, defined as grades 7 to 9). 2002, Front Street, 136p,— Walter Hogan