Heat Lightning

By Leah Hager Cohen

Book Overview

Like Kaye Gibbons' Charms for the Easy Life and Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping, Cohen's hauntingly poignant story deals with remarkable women bonded by strength, loss and love. Told in the lyrical... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0380974681
• ISBN13: 9780380974689
• Release Date: January 1997
• Publisher: Avon Books
• Length: 326 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.0" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

Fascinating exploration of childhood

Rarely have I read a book that captured my interest and sympathies so fully. The author evokes childhood evocatively through the thousand sensual details of summer, and the perplexities of navigating the world of adults without the guidance of parents. I must have read it decades ago, yet I can feel the pleasure from the experience as if it were yesterday. I highly recommend it.

More than nice language.

I think what is heartbreaking about Heat Lightning is that Cohen shows so accurately how life eludes our attempts to make sense of it. Her characters are so true; their thoughts and dialogue perfectly rendered. That we are denied an easy solution to the young girls' puzzle seems a definite, skillful choice on Cohen's part. This is not a "potboiler" or a mass market novel, it's a sensitive story full of the tension of ordinary life. The right person picking this book up on the subway will feel blessed.

Wonderfully shows what seems a true to life story.

This book shows, from the point of view of a young girl that does not know much about anything really, what's like living in a small town, and having no parents. The inner struggle of the main character is unbelievibe, considering she is VERY young.