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The Rope Walk: A Novel
by Carrie Brown
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Pantheon (2007-05-01)
ISBN: 0375424636
EAN: 9780375424632
Dewy Decimal #: 813.54
Paperback: 336 pages
Release Date: 2007-05-01
SKU: 07120279
Condition: Like New Like New
Comments: Hardcover. Like new cover and text. Like new dust jacket with very minor shelfwear. Near Fine condition. Beautiful book.
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Editorial Reviews
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Product Description
The Rope Walk brings us the dazzling story of a pivotal summer in the life of Alice, a redheaded tomboy and motherless girl who is beloved and protected by her five older brothers and her widower father, a professor of Shakespeare. On Memorial Day, at her tenth birthday party in the garden of her Vermont village home, Alice meets two people unlike any she’s known before. Theo is a mixed-race New York City kid visiting his white grandparents for the summer. Kenneth is a cosmopolitan artist with AIDS who has come home to convalesce with his middle-aged sister. Alice and Theo form an instant bond and, almost as quickly, find themselves drawn into the orbit of the magisterial Kenneth. When the children begin a daily routine of reading aloud to the artist, who is losing his eyesight, they discover the journals of Lewis and Clark and decide to embark on their own wilderness adventure: they plan and secretly build a “rope walk” through the woods for Kenneth and in the process learn the first of many hard truths about the way adults see the world, no matter that they are often wrong.
The great gift of The Rope Walk is its exquisitely poised writing. Alice’s narrative is a profound experience of innocence, of perception balanced between childhood and adulthood. The flying spark of new friendship, the first intimation of adult love, the consolation of devotion, which allow Alice and Theo to shed light in the midst of darkness and to find joy in mutual understanding: these glistening threads are drawn together in a timeless story–profound, seductive, wise, and moving, from first to last.
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Customer Reviews
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Delightful and delicious storytelling
Rating  (5)
Date: 2008-09-17
Like a gourmet meal at a five-star restaurant, The Rope Walk, by Carrie Brown, delights the senses from appetizer to dessert. A total sensory experience, it's seasoned with just the right metaphors, it evokes both the sweet and savory memories of childhood, and is filled with the richest characters.
I love this book. So deep is its spell, I found it difficult to keep it located in time. Even though it is set in today's small-town Vermont, I literally kept forgetting it wasn't talking about a different time--a different place. It's so ethereal, so timeless, so completely its own world.
And I'm not completely sure it really isn't its own world. "On her windowsill, Alice waited, watching. The full energy of the day, like a parade assembling its drums and cymbals and marching players, lay just out of sight, gathering strength at the of the world. Any moment now, the day's brimming cup would spill over the far treetops and flood the hour with light." That sounds like a creation story to me.
The Rope Walk tells the story of the relationship between a white, ten-year-old small-town girl, Alice, and Theo, a young black boy from the big city. Thrown together by his grandmother's illness, Theo comes to live with her family for the summer. With all the spontaneity and innocence of childhood, the two children find adventure, intimacy, solace and heartache as they delicately walk the line between their own world and the adult world that surrounds them.
If you only have a short time to visit this new world, do not pick up The Rope Walk, choose a magazine instead. This book is a feast and deserves the ambiance of a five-star restaurant rather than a fast-food drive through.
Armchair Interviews says: Powerful storytelling to touch your heart.
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sense or story?
Rating  (3)
Date: 2008-09-02
Carrie Brown's The Rope Walk tells the story of Alice, a young girl, and her discovery of the world and herself during an important summer in Vermont. Theo, the grandson of her father's best friend, whom Alice met at her tenth birthday that summer, becomes a great friend, and the two grow closer and closer when Theo has to stay at Alice's house due to his mother's depressed state. Together Alice and Theo meet Kenneth Fitzgerald, an accomplished artist living with his sister in his cluttered home. As his last years flow by, Alice and Theo learn more about Kenneth and the many expeditions he carried out in his younger days. When they hear that Kenneth does not have much longer to live, Alice and Theo are determined to fulfill his wishes of reuniting with nature. Finally the two children come upon the decision to build him a ropewalk that will lead him through the forest. The children share a tight bond and Alice feels herself growing into a young adult. Theo becomes so involved in Alice's life that she can no longer imagine living without him. In this story of a young girl's coming-of-age, Carrie Brown captures every moment in great detail.
Throughout the book, Brown depicts everything from an old cardboard box, to the smell of Theo's shoulder with immense depth. Each and every line is beautifully written, and the book is filled with many famous quotes of Shakespeare, as well as excerpts from the diaries of Lewis and Clark.
However, though Carrie Brown's writing is magnificent, she often loses the attention of the reader in her thorough descriptions. At times, it would be refreshing to get straight to the point.
Despite Brown's occasional sacrifice of story for detail, The Rope Walk is a great, and enjoyable, read that is brilliantly written.
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Big Issues on a Small Canvas
Rating (5)
Date: 2008-07-24
1 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
This beautifully realized gem of a novel has all of life's big issues writ on a small canvas. Family relationships, love, loss, inter-racial relationships, AIDS,and death are all here, seen through the eyes of an enchanting 10 year old in rural Vermont.I wanted to be part of Alice's family. I did not want this book to end.
If The Rope Walk had been written by Ian McEwan (supposing for a moment he were capable of such restraint), we would be talking Booker Prize. It is amazing that this book has not received wider acclaim.
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A rare gem.......
Rating (5)
Date: 2007-09-20
2 out of 2 customers found this reveiw helpful
A jewel of a book! I am so glad I read this novel, and will definitely read more of Carrie Brown's writings. I was drawn into Alice's world from the first page. Loved the close relationships between Alice and her family....the love they had for each other;the interactions and caring concern for the neighbors and friends in a small town; the descriptions of their everyday lives. When Alice's world begins to change over the course of the summer, we are drawn in by the sadness she feels at her brothers' departures for school, the close bond she develops with her adorable, quirky new friend, Theo; and the lessons of tolerance they both learn when Kenneth is introduced into their lives. I savored every word and phrase. Beautifully written!
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beautifully written
Rating  (4)
Date: 2007-06-26
0 out of 4 customers found this reveiw helpful
loved the book. Definitely different. Beautiful descriptive words and nice from a child's point of view.
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