Product Description

From the author of the widely acclaimed The Book of Ruth comes a harrowing, heartbreaking drama about a rural American family and a disastrous event that forever changes their lives.

The Goodwins, Howard, Alice, and their little girls, Emma and Claire, live on a dairy farm in Wisconsin. Although suspiciously regarded by their neighbors as "that hippie couple" because of their well-educated, urban background, Howard and Alice believe they have found a source of emotional strength in the farm, he tending the barn while Alice works as a nurse in the local elementary school.

But their peaceful life is shattered one day when a neighbor's two-year-old daughter drowns in the Goodwins' pond while under Alice's care. Tormented by the accident, Alice descends even further into darkness when she is accused of sexually abusing of a student at the elementary school. Soon, Alice is arrested, incarcerated, and as good as convicted in the eyes of a suspicious community. As a child, Alice designed her own map of the world to find her bearings. Now, as an adult, she must find her way again, through a maze of lies, doubt and ill will.

A vivid human drama of guilt and betrayal, A Map of the World chronicles the intricate geographies of the human heart and all its mysterious, uncharted terrain. The result is a piercing drama about family bonds and a disappearing rural American life.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #130169 in Books
• Published on: 1999-12-03
• Released on: 1999-12-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780385720106
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Amazon.com Review
Oprah Book Club® Selection, December 1999: In A Map of the World, appearance overwhelms reality and communal hysteria threatens common sense. Howard and Alice Goodheart, the couple at the center of Jane Hamilton's 1994 novel, have labored mightily to create a pastoral paradise in a Wisconsin subdivision. Their 400-acre dairy farm is the last in Prairie Center, and they're working flat out to raise their two young girls in a traditionally bucolic manner. Yet paradoxically, they strike their neighbors as unacceptably modern, and have been treated as interlopers since the day of their arrival. Howard, in love with his vocation, chooses not to believe that they've been frozen out. But Alice, flinty and quick to judge, finds things harder. And her job as school nurse doesn't work wonders for her reputation either. Happily, there's one exception to this epidemic of unfriendliness: their closest neighbors. Theresa and Dan, who also have two young daughters, function as a virtual lifeline for the embattled family.

But in June 1990, whatever idyll the Goodhearts have worked for comes to a permanent end. On a beautiful morning--marred by her 5-year-old's tantrum but still recuperable--Alice looks forward to taking her children and Theresa's youngest for a swim. Distracted for several minutes, she has no idea that the 2-year-old is no longer in the house:

Lizzy had run to the pond and splashed in. It had felt good on her hot feet and she kept running and then she was pedaling and pedaling. She tried to grab hold of the water, pawing for the metal bar, a ladder rung, her mother, but there was nothing. She clutched and flailed.... She sank. The trout that Howard had stocked in the pond swam along through the dark water. They noticed Lizzy out of the corner of their eyes. They had inherited the knowledge of that look, and they knew it by heart.

This is only the first of Alice's body blows. Next, she's questioned about one of her students, a memorably bad seed. On the verge of collapse, she cries out, "I hurt everybody!"--which will later be construed as a confession. Charged with sexual abuse and unable to come up with $100,000 in bail, she is forced to await trial in jail.

Narrated first by Alice, then Howard, and then Alice again, A Map of the World moves from intimate domesticity to courtroom drama with grace and subtlety. Hamilton wrote her book when accusations of abuse in schools and day care were peaking, yet this is not a modish work or an "issue novel" but a lasting creation of several complex lives. At one point, fed up with civil mechanisms, Alice tells her lawyer: "'Let Oprah be the judge.... Let Robbie and me, Mrs. Mackessy, Howard, Theresa, Dan, Mrs. Glevitch--let all of us come before Oprah. Let the studio audience decide. They're nice suburban woman, many of them, dressed for a lark. They have common sense and speak their minds.'" Apparently La Winfrey was listening, since she chose this beautifully observed novel for her book club. --Kerry Fried

From The Washington Post
"Hamilton's chillingly accurate prose keeps her fine novel buoyant. She is superb in her observation of the natural world and in her examination of psychological nuance."

Review
"It takes a writer of rare power and discipline to carry off an achievement like A Map of the World. Hamilton proves here that she is one of the best." -- Newsweek

"Jane Hamilton has removed all doubts that she belongs among the major writers of our time." -- San Francisco Chronicle

"Jane Hamilton has removed all doubts thatshe belongs among the major writers of our time." --San Francisco Chronicle

"Stunning prose and unforgettable characters . . . an enthralling tale of guilt, betrayal, and the terrifying ways our lives can spin out of control." --Entertainment Weekly

"It takes a writer of rare power and discipline to carry off an achievement like A Map of the World.  Hamilton proves here that she is one of the best." --Newsweek

"Ms. Hamilton has done a nimble job of showing us how precarious the illusion of safety and security really is." --The New York Times

"Hamilton's chillingly accurate prose keeps her fine novel buoyant.  She is superb in her observation of the natural world and in her examination of psychological nuance." --The Washington Post -- Review

"Ms. Hamilton has done a nimble job of showing us how precarious the illusion of safety and security really is." -- The New York Times

"Stunning prose and unforgettable characters . . . an enthralling tale of guilt, betrayal, and the terrifying ways our lives can spin out of control." -- Entertainment Weekly

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Customer Reviews

Well written but ultimately too sad
I read this book a few years ago shortly after it was released in paperback. Jane Hamilton is a beautiful, insightful writer with a keen ability to paint realistic characters experiencing very believable emotions. Although I appreciate her immense talent, this book left me feeling empty and sad, rather than enraged, embolded or inspired, as she may have intended. This is a well-written book that deserves all its praise, but reading an emotionally draining book, with little levity to break up the mood, is simply not how I like to spend a rainy afternoon.

A Map of the World: Desperate Struggles
Alice Goodwin is a troubled woman living on a dairy farm in Prairie Center, Wisconsin. The mother of two girls, Emma (6) and Claire (3), she is struggling to get her life together. When her husband Howard decided to pursue his dream of being a dairy farmer, she went along with him, but they have been trying to make ends meet. Alice is the school nurse at the local elementary school, and after the terrible drowning of the two-year old neighbor who was in Alice's care, she is suddenly faced with sexual harassment charges from one of the students at the school. While she is in jail Howard desperately tries to keep the family from falling apart, which proves very difficult, and everyone's breath is held leading up to and during the trial. I liked this book, because of the strong emotions and sub-plots. The reader really feels as if he/she is experiencing the unfolding of the carefully planned plot, riding along with the family as they dodge all of the ruts in the road of life. It is amazing to read the story through the eyes of both Alice and Howard. I would recommend this book for most people ages 13 and older.

I read it almost 5 years ago and it still haunts me.
I can see the funeral in my mind's eye as I write. I have read Hamilton's other books and found them a bit dull. But, my God, this book will rip your heart out. I actually told the story to my husband on a car trip. We were crying so hard we had to pull over. Astounding piece of fiction.