Books >
Blues Lessons

Blues Lessons
Blues Lessons
A Novel  
By Robert Hellenga
This edition: Trade Paperback, 336 pages
Availability: Usually ships within 1 business day
List Price: $20.99
Your Price: $16.79 You Save $4.20 (20%)
Add to Cart or Buy from another online retailer
Also available in

Description

In the lush countryside of 1950s Michigan, young Martin Dijksterhuis has everything he could ever want, living among his extended family and working in his family's orchard fields. Despite his mother's plans for him to attend college in Chicago, he has no desire to leave home.

One autumn, in a camp of migrant farm workers, Martin discovers a music that touches him like nothing before -- the unsettling melodies and timeless words of the country blues. He also falls in love with Corinna, the daughter of the black foreman who runs the orchards. He ends up fathering her child, only to lose her in a stunning betrayal. Martin's music and his love for Corinna are the two themes of his life. His struggle to combine them in a single story takes him far from home and the life he had always envisioned for himself, only to bring him back again in a way he could never have imagined.

In this beautifully rendered novel, Robert Hellenga explores the fragility of happiness, the struggle to discover one's true calling in life, and the sorrows and satisfactions of family.

Read more:

Chapter 1
Frances Stead Sellers The Washington Post Book World Once in a while, when reality is too painful to bear, fiction can help us to explore the fragility of our human condition. The Fall of a Sparrow is such a book. With compassion and humor, it conveys a sense of certainty and ultimate faith that only the finest writing can achieve. It is an extraordinary novel.
David Willis McCullough The New York Times Book Review Hellenga has a gift for nicely pointed satire and a rich, almost lavish sense of place.
Rebecca Radner San Francisco Chronicle Book Review Irresistible...A compendium of delights, overflowing with insight and passion. The funny parts are absurdly hilarious, the painful ones moving and perceptive.
Antonya Nelson author of Nobody's Girl Robert Hellenga's great gift to the world of letters is his ability to breathe sensual life into a complex and rewarding cross section of all worlds
-- ancient, contemporary, sacred, bodily, silly, sublime.
Jane Hamilton author of The Book of Ruth Here's the new Robert Hellenga novel, as richly detailed and absorbing as The Sixteen Pleasures. You know what you need to do: Boil the tea water, get into bed, tell your dear family to go away for a few days, and begin the journey.
Fred G. Leebron author of Six Figures Blues Lessons offers words of wisdom and solace about parenthood, love, and the nature of hope. It is the real thing: a big book about big issues, given to us with all the intimacy offered by real characters living real lives.
Kelly Cherry author of The Society of Friends: Stories With a light and skillful touch, Hellenga negotiates the large American themes of race, place, and work. This is a lovely, warmhearted novel, a pleasure to read and a pleasure to remember.
Robert Hellenga's Books
Displaying 1 of
See All Robert Hellenga books