The Practice House Paperback – April 1, 2017

I’ve been reading Kindle First selections for quite some time, and this one was one of the better reads. I cared about the characters and was invested in what their outcomes would be (and my dissatisfaction with the lack of explanation of the latter knocked off a star in my rating, see Spoiler #5). Some readers found the plot/POV a bit jumpy and disjointed, but I didn’t have that reaction and had no problem following the narrative. Some found this tale from the Great Depression depressing, but I felt the characters’ struggles and wished for better outcomes in some cases, but life rarely works out as we hope. Part historical drama, part romance tale, it’s worth the time.The author’s care in researching and faithfully conveying many of the fine details of the era was impressive. I had never heard of the Harvey House chain, for instance. The author worked on the book for nearly 15 years, and the fruits of her labor are as clear as they are gratifying to the reader.For those who want a plot description, please see that section in the book details. The rest of my observations assume you’ve read the book.SPOILER ALERT #1 – THE TITLEMany lower-rated reviews pointed out they didn’t see the relevance on the title. I too struggled with that question periodically as I worked through the book. After I finished the read, I still didn’t get it, so I turned to Mr. Google for some help.In a blog published recently on April 4 on the site largeheartedboy-dot-com, the author explains:“The Practice House is an actual building that was constructed in Fallbrook, California in the 1930s to help teach high school girls what parents feared was a dying art: homemaking. The title of the novel also refers to every house the female characters live in as they try to obtain and keep their own homes and families – as they try to find and make their places in the world.”(For an interesting take on the “soundtrack” the author used in imagining this tale, go to that same article.)So the late introduction of the Practice House, proper – the Home-Ec department at the high school – defines the symbol, but it definitely takes some reflection to connect it to the rest of the narrative.For Aldine, she ultimately fantasizes about living on the farm with Ansel and even has a brief realization of this dream, but that outcome is doomed. We don’t ever actually find out how she makes her place in the world, but presumably she finds her “Japanese man” or perhaps never gets married.For Ellie, she “fails” her practice house course, rejecting the farm life she had with Ansel. She finds her place as a restaurateur.For Charlotte, she obviously learned the lessons of self-sufficient farm/domestic life adequately enough to be able to teach it in high school, but it seems likely she turned away from that life when she married the successful entrepreneur, McNamara.For Geneva, we have many holes to fill in her story, but we know she ultimately runs the café after Ellie dies.In any case, my specific analyses might be off, but the author’s recent comment should help elucidate the significance of the title.SPOILER ALERT #2 – AGE DIFFERENCEOne minor quibble was the “May-October” relationship, indeed, a pair of them with Aldine/Ansel and Charlotte/James McNamara. I have no doubt the author made a deliberate choice. I guess she’s pointing out the hypocrisy of the shocking relationship of the former versus the acceptance of the latter. However, the shock of the former is really about Ansel being married; James is widowed. Obviously, both women are young enough to be daughters of their respective men. In fact, early on my question was whether the 20-year-old Aldine would become involved with the 14-year-old Clarence or his middle-aged father. I was a bit queasy about either direction. In both cases, I found the May-October situations a bit of a reach. I’m sure we could delve into “daddy complexes” for the women, but I just had problems with the believability of these relationships. Perhaps this kind of relationship was more common in the 30s?SPOILER ALERT #3 – WHAT SEX?Some criticisms of a drift towards an obsession with sex in the narrative are, to my tastes, completely off mark. There are absolutely no salacious or gratuitous scenes of carnality, and the “action scenes” are handled with a very light touch. Indeed, the pivotal plot turn with Aldine and Ansel barely gets off first base before we discreetly move away, and while the reader can certainly conjecture how far it went, it’s not for several chapters before the author reveals the resulting pregnancy. And for people who think sex isn’t a relevant motivator in life, of what species are you a part?SPOILER ALERT #4 – MIRACULOUS CONTAINMENTGiven the proximity of Aldine and Ansel during the intensification of his TB symptoms back in Kansas, I found it highly improbably that Aldine could escape infection and, by subsequent nursing, infecting Vivian. For a while, I thought the plot would progress with Aldine and Vivian contracting TB and dying. Indeed, how does anyone in the California household get away clean? I had difficulty with this question.SPOILER ALERT #5 – EPILOGUEOK, I know it’s not the novelist’s job to tie up all the loose ends. Many great novels leave it up to the readers to draw their own conclusions (Do Pip and Estella unite at the end of “Great Expectations” or go their separate ways?), but in including a 1957 epilogue, the author could have filled in several more details, to wit:What is Aldine’s path after Kansas? We know she goes to Salt Lake City, but does she ever marry? What is her place in the world moving forward?What about Ellie? Presumably she marries Dr. Quigley, as there are ample hints in that direction. How long ago had she died by 1957?What about Clarence and Lavinia? That’s a story I wanted to wrap up. We know they were married and divorced, but the author references “her girl” going to law school, not their daughter. Did Lavinia remarry and have children with another man?And what about Geneva? We know she is running the Sleeping Indian Café after Ellie passes, but we have no additional evidence of her path.The author had an excellent opportunity to answer these questions when Clare persuades Aldine to leave the car and come into the café, but that’s where the book ends.Maybe the answers to these questions are all sequel material…

Recollections of the Dust Bowl diaspora of america's west are peppered with observations like "we had the farm and we got by on what we grew" or "everyone pulled together" but those stories are told by children of people who survived. This novel does not turn away from some of the grimmer realities, such as the compromises that some people made in order to get by. A family farm in a part of kansas most affected by the Dust Bowl and the economic disaster that resulted is worked by one Ansel Price. He inherited the place and went away long enough to find himself a bride, Ellie, who eaitressed at a Harvey House. The Harvey Houses were restaurants always built near or in train stations, dottef across the country and run with a scientific efficiency to match the train schedules. Women and men worked to feed travelers quickly and the waittresses would stay until they married or got pregnant. Not always in that order. But Ansel and Ellie made a good start, and when they married they settled into the land of Loam County Kansas to raise their children. Two are approaching the end of what would be middle school today, Clare and Charlotte. The youngest child is Neva, sweet and honest and small enough still to only see the good in the world. Neva has yet to learn the habit of reticence which is a survival skill that greatly eases the hardships to come. The family reluctantly ends up providing room and board to a Scots woman, Aldine, who has landed in their town after answering the ad the father placed at the urging of the local school board to find a teacher for the one room school. Dust Bowl midwest vels based in the Midwest during the dust bowl Era are plentiful. Once in a while, one comes along that conveys a bit of the hardship and offers the reader a glimpse into lives that could be, may be, more true than we can ever imagine. The great depression was a global event, in human scale as well as geological, piling up tragedies so small and so common that they were hardly worth thinking about. True histories that storytellers were not especially eager to pass down unvarnished and thus seldom remembered. Sometimes people might recall a widow who had no photo album of her married life, or an uncle who was never the same after the family farm was lost. This is a novel with their stories and it rings true, with a spare declarative style.What is The Practice House? It is a place set up in a California High School, a precursor to what came to be known as home economics, a study program for women who were no longer farm wives, not well off enough to have servants as their grandmother's might have had, and often displaced with no home upbringing where the art or science of cooking, sewing, or other homemaking skills were learned working with one's family. In a way, the Price farmhouse in Kansas and the place the family makes for themselves when they finally relocate to California are practice houses. They are the places where the children, Clare, Charlotte, and Neva practice, growing into a new way of life that unfolds over years, as the world changes the way the light changes when a dust storm blows up and over. The noonday sun is softened and casts no shadows even at noon.

The beginning of the book was very slow and at times dragged on. The later part seemed to fly by and miss a lot of details that would be nice to know. The end of the book is sad and anticlimactic in a way that leaves you wishing there were more details.

This was read for a book club and no one in the group enjoyed this book.This is not very well written, chapters range from a couple of paragraphs to 10-15 pages, there is not enough depth to make the characters and the relationships believable. The plot is highly predictable and the story line between the plot points is very disjointed and 'made to fit' rather than a natural course of events. The book follows a step by step guide and has not allowed the story or the characters the chance or opportunity to follow another path if just something else had happened at the wrong/right moment.The title doesn't match the story, and the back cover do not marry up with the story and are another aspect of how this is very disjointed and confusing book.

Just the kind of novel I enjoy most - with a fascinating background (American rural life during a time of hardship) and totally believable characters that made you care about them. The love interest was about two people who were twin souls (similar traits) and understood each other when others didn't. I will definitely look out for other novels by Laura McNeal.

The Dreamers and the RealistsSet against the coming days of the dust bowl this novel deals with the impact on a family whose members wants and needs are in conflict. Hero worship, petty meanness and jealousy, a failing marriage and the head of a family whose crime is that he wants more for his community than is realistically possible are the elements combined in this thought provoking novel.

McNeal takes everyday events and makes a story out of them. Readers have no trouble visualizing the well defined characters or sympathizing with their plight. I could almost taste the dirt as it blew across the prairie. The novel moves apace keeping the rreader occupied with little opportunity for boredom. Recommended reading.

I wanted to like this book, but while it started out well, the characters actions and motivations began becoming less and less believable. It's set in an interesting time and location and it ends well, in that loose threads are well wrapped up.