My name is Towner Whitney. No, that's not exactly true. My real first name is Sophya. Never believe me. I lie all the time. . . .
Towner Whitney, the self-confessed unreliable narrator of The Lace Reader, hails from a family of Salem women who can read the future in the patterns in lace, and who have guarded a history of secrets going back generations, but the disappearance of two women brings Towner home to Salem and the truth about the death of her twin sister to light.
The Lace Reader is a mesmerizing tale that spirals into a world of secrets, confused identities, lies, and half-truths in which the reader quickly finds it's nearly impossible to separate fact from fiction, but as Towner Whitney points out early on in the novel, "There are no accidents."
Amazon Best of the Month, August 2008: Brunonia Barry dreamt she saw a prophecy in a piece of lace, a vision so potent she spun it into a novel. The Lace Reader retains the strange magic of a vivid dream, though Barry's portrayal of modern-day Salem, Massachusetts--with its fascinating cast of eccentrics--is reportedly spot-on. Some of its stranger residents include generations of Whitney women, with a gift for seeing the future in the lace they make. Towner Whitney, back to Salem from self-imposed exile on the West Coast, has plans for recuperation that evaporate with her great-aunt Eva's mysterious drowning. Fighting fear from a traumatic adolescence she can barely remember, Towner digs in for answers. But questions compound with the disappearance of a young woman under the thrall of a local fire-and-brimstone preacher, whose history of violence against Whitney women makes the situation personal for Towner. Her role in cop John Rafferty's investigation sparks a tentative romance. And as they scramble to avert disaster, the past that had slipped through the gaps in Towner's memory explodes into the present with a violence that capsizes her concept of truth. Readers will look back at the story in a new light, picking out the clues in this complex, lovely piece of work. --Mari Malcolm
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 3.5 / 5.0
So much time wasted:
The Lace Reader CD [AUDIOBOOK] [UNABRIDGED] I should have gone looking for the abridged version. This book went on and on and on. I am a therapist and this sounded interesting, but I am so glad I got it from the library. I have slogged on only in order to get to the end. I do not like the voice of the person who is reading because it is reedy and adolescent for an alleged adult, but I perserved as I am interested in mystics, psychics,etc, and I wanted to hear if and how Towner healed herself. What a waste... more info
SLOW, DISAPPOINTING, and MEDIOCRE:
THE LACE READER I stuck with this book to the bitter end, hoping it would get better and more exciting. It never did. I had high expectations for this book -- set in Salem, witches, lace reading, which seemed akin to palm reading -- however, it just didn't happen. The story line was thick, slow, constantly repeating itself and going in circles. Towner and her family are lace readers, women who can read people's futures looking at lace. Towner comes to Salem for the funeral of a relative and... more info
Just not impressed:
I know there are many fans of this book, and while I tried my best to be drawn in by the characters and the unusual story, I just couldn't care about any of it. The ending, as other reviewers point out, is a huge "huh" moment, and the characters often left me wondering - and not in a good way. There is a great deal of literary fiction I can recommend, like The Thrall's Tale or The Heretic's Daughter, both of which have multifaceted characters you care about. But this novel didn't move me at all, and by page... more info
I was left confused:
In many ways, this book left me confused. I read along, following the story closely and with great interest. It moved in strange ways, with different voices, but it all seemed to flow just fine. And then the ending brought me to an abrupt "huh?!?!" I went back and read large portions of the book thinking I must have just missed something, but in the end it just confirmed that although some of the twist was in the text, a lot of it was not. Too much of the fiction was fiction, or otherwise left... more info
