The Excellent Lombards by Jane Hamilton
The Excellent Lombards, by Jane Hamilton, is the 16th book I have reviewed for “Book Beat – Impact” and it is the hardest one to write about because I wasn’t particularly impressed with it. Like most authors who have previously made the New York Times Best Seller List, the cover indicates a book written by Jane Hamilton in 1994, entitled A Map of the World, made the New York Times Best Seller List.
It occurred to me that there seem to be an awful lot of books that make the List. Knowing little about the List, I looked into it a bit and became just slightly educated about it. I did know from newspapers there are lists for various categories: fiction, non-fiction, hardback, paperback and different genres. However, I was unaware of the many criticisms and controversies of the List. The List is based on most sales in a given week. Thus, a book that sells many more copies overall than one that sells many copies in just one week may be kept off the List. Obviously, authors and publishers have a big stake in making the List (initial high sales figures can bring more publicity to the book thus propagating more sales in future weeks, and authors may earn more according to their contract with the publisher and can demand higher speaking fees). Sale numbers can be manipulated by double-counting when totaling wholesale and retail sales. The publishers and authors may personally buy large quantities of the book to assist in making the List. These are only a few nuisances of impacting the Best Seller List.
The story of The Excellent Lombards is about a 600 acre apple orchard in Wisconsin that has been in the Lombard family for generations and currently belongs to two cousins, Jim (400 acres) and Sherwood (200 acres), who owns the large main house on the estate plus an important right-of-way. Their activities also included haying and raising sheep. The main characters are Mary Francis (Frankie) and William, the young kids of Jim Lombard and his wife, Nellie, with William being just a year older than Frankie. There are many other characters in the story that are either making an effort to keep the farm a going enterprise or have influence on the family members. There is Aunt May Hill, who is an older lady known as the fixer because of her mechanical abilities; Gloria, a hired hand for many years; cousin Philip; Stephen Lombard, brother of Sherwood (who people think is a spy working for the CIA and appears periodically at the farm during apple picking time); the wealthy newcomers to the neighborhood, David, and Brianna Kraselnik (a radiologist and school teacher respectively), among many others.
Frankie’s adventures included interviewing May Hill for a school assignment, getting locked in May’s bedroom while sneaking around the second floor of the main house to see what was there and various adventures with William (including getting lost). Frankie also intentionally lost the school Geography Bee to let her best girlfriend win it. Starting in lower elementary
school and going to high school, Frankie and William had a healthy relationship with one another. Near the end of the book, William is planning on going off to college. But then what will he do? What are Frankie’s dreams? Her mother, Nellie, wants her to attend what she thought was one of the top 10 colleges, with hopes of her selecting Swarthmore College, in Delaware County. Frankie, on the other hand, is active in the Future Farmers of America and the 4-H Club. The bottom line is what will happen to the farm when the older generation is unable to run it effectively.
The Excellent Lombards reminds me of a seven layer salad, which includes layers of lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, sweet peas, hard boiled eggs, sharp cheddar cheese and bacon pieces. The book includes an alcoholic, an eccentric, co-owners who after 30 years as partners get into verbal battles because one is a visionary and the other is a commander of details, Frankie coming of age as she thinks she is in love with everyone from her fourth grade teacher to older fellows, romance, characters who don’t talk with one another, children of both co-owners that might inherit the farm and other relatives who “dropin” for a season and may be after the farm.
I have eaten seven layer salad many times and it tastes mighty good when I start but by the time I’ve eaten a bit too much, I’m tired of it, just like this story. However, don’t let me discourage you too much from reading it. Connie Ogle gave it a good review in the Philadelphia Inquirer in recent weeks. My analysis is the book was about mundane life on the apple orchard with very little to get excited about.
My dear mother had many sayings, one of which was, “Everyone has their own tastes said the old lady as she kissed the cow.” I would rather kiss my wife!