| Title | : | A Sandhills Ballad |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0826346855 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780826346858 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages | : | 351 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 2009 |
| Awards | : | WILLA Literary Award Contemporary Fiction (Finalist) (2010) |
"This is good, old-fashioned storytelling at its best, and Mary Rasmussen will live forever in your hearts as a young woman who faces enormous tests and survives in order to protect those she loves. Stubborn, determined, and loyal, Mary makes a life that requires both imagination and grit and you end up rooting for her every inch of the way. "Randolph is revisioning the American plains in this novel, telling the stories of the women who struggle side-by-side with men on their Sandhills ranches and in their small towns. These are people of great courage and even greater integrity, who love and lose and love again, as undaunted as their pioneer forebears in their efforts to make a life for themselves and future generations. . . . "Randolph writes truthfully of the Nebraska Sandhills, a harsh land that exacts a brutal price for those who choose to love it. Having lived there, one never truly leaves, as Mary Rasmussen discovers, it etches its beautiful scar on body and soul."--Jonis Agee, author of The River Wife
"With penetrating insight and solid authority on the rural West, Ladette Randolph has carved out a compelling saga of a young woman ripening into maturity. You cannot help but cheer for Mary Rasmussen. Randolph's work is tough, tender, and brave, a pitch-perfect take on the hard beauty of life on the Nebraska prairie."--Pamela Carter Joern, author of The Floor of the Sky and The Plain Sense of Things
" A Sandhills Ballad is a poignantly written, lovely novel of the heartland that honors the best traditions of storytelling."--Jim Harrison, author of The English Major and Legends of the Fall
"I began reading A Sandhills Ballad in the afternoon and found myself, at three in the morning, finishing the last page. Mary's story is at once sad and brave, tender and compelling. Ladette Randolph knows well the rhythms and variations of life in Nebraska's Sandhills, where men and women face loss without complaint and celebrate their days with a love of family and land and community that runs like a quiet stream beneath the seamless prose of this novel."--Mary Clearman Blew, author of Jackalope Dreams and winner of many awards, including a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Western Literature Association
A Sandhills Ballad Reviews
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This is an amazing book, not just because it depicts the Nebraska setting and characters but also because the characters are true and well-developed. I have taught this to about a half a dozen classes, both undergraduate and graduate, and everyone loves it!
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An amazing story about a woman emerging from a coma, learning that she has lost her young husband and her leg in a car accident. Plagued by a sense that she she was singled out for punishment by God, she struggles painfully and slowly to regain her balance and find her place in her world. Brilliantly, sparely drawn characters. I loved every page.
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Though I read this as a "professional", and therefore was overly critical as I went along, I found myself enthralled as I would be for a non-work title, and thinking about it often even after I have finished, a true testament. A spare, quiet book, but real and engaging story.
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My favorite place on earth is Nebraska. Mary's story is almost the story of every Nebraskan. Nebraskan are pioneers and overcomers, which is Mary's story. My main complaint is in her attempt to thinly veiled attempt to alter names of real places. Growing up around Oconto, your hospital is Kearney, not North Platte. I loved the book, hated the misleading geography!
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A Nebraska woman, Mary, raised on a ranch, loses both her husband and her leg in automobile crash; she returns home and tries to regain a sense of self with her prosthesis (nick named "Peg"), but then is courted by minister, Ward, and finally leaves the ranch to marry him, as a way of going forward with life. He proves to be a righteous tyrant, trying to force Mary into the mould of minister's wife. Mary is too much her own person for this. She finds work for herself in a nursing home. Then just as she has determined to leave Ward, discovers that she is pregnant. She stays to have four children by him. But then meeting a man she loves, she has her awakening and tries to take her children back to her family's ranch and to escape Ward. Ward follows in pursuit, kidnaps the children, and another disastrous accident follows. "In her better moments," Randolph writes of Mary, "she recognized the two accidents bracketing her life with Ward as the metaphor it was."
Randolph's narration is deliberately flat and emotionally deadpan, reflecting Mary's stoicism. The nursing home provides cameo characters, whose stories are tributary to Mary's. Ward may be the triumph of the novel, truly a monster of the deep, and yet totally human. Like Job's, Mary's story questions the justice of hard fate, and the Sandhills setting echoes her questions in the landscape itself. But Mary vows at last: "She'd never again be someone's right hand or someone's helpmeet. She'd find her own path. She was flawed in some way. She didn't know quite how, and it didn't matter. What she did know was she had a lot of work to do to become the woman she was determined to be."
This is a beautifully told, full story, which lives up to and exceeds its promises. -
I did enjoy this story that takes place in Nebraska. Simple story of a woman whose husband dies in an accident. The woman loses her leg. She then is courted by a sinister minister. We know she doesn't care for him. But then she proceeds to have four children with him. Silly. But well written book. I did want to keep reading it.
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The story begins with Mary waking up from a devastating car accident, and continues to show how she attempts to recreate her life after it has veered off. Mary isn't always likable, but she is always interesting. AND, it's set in Custer County, Nebraska, and if you've ever driven along Highway 92, you know how beautiful the Sandhills are.
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I really enjoyed reading this book. It's told in a very no nonsense Midwestern (Nebraskan) manner, but I found myself wanting to know what was going to happen to Mary next. The plot was very compelling, and as one reviewer said, the Nebraska landscape is as much a character in the book as are the people.
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Powerfully emotional novel. The characters were so real. The story will stay with me forever. The force of the truths on its pages knocked me flat. Ladette Randolph is *my* Chekov!
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I WANT HALF STARS!!! This book is a clear 4.5 star situation. This is a strong, skilled, emotional novel and I loved it.
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Good characters and enjoyable story.
