Ernie's ark built as part of "One Book, One Community" celebration in
Scarborough, Maine.
A Booksense 76
pick
Chosen for a "One Book, One
Community" project by Oxford Hills, Maine; Winthrop, Maine; York, Maine; and
Scarborough, Maine
"That One Autumn" from Ernie's
Ark was a "Selected Shorts" radio reading, recorded in New York City in May
2006.
About the book...
Ernie's Ark is a book of connected stories set in
the fictional paper-mill town of Abbott Falls, Maine. When the paper mill goes
out on strike, Ernie Whitten, a pipefitter taking care of his dying wife, builds
an ark in his backyard, an act of faith and defiance that reverberates
throughout the community in unexpected ways. The characters that populate Ernie's
Ark -- among them a razor-tongued CEO, a schoolgirl in love with Jesse
Jackson, a pair of brothers testing their family ties, and a former delinquent
desperate to amend an old crime -- fulfill one of the author's recurring themes:
the inevitable and often misdirected human desire for connection.
Read an excerpt from Ernie's Ark
Reviews
" Intelligent and warmhearted stories...quietly
wonderful fiction...for any reader drawn to mature examinations of what binds
and divides people in all kinds of relationships. [Wood's] voice is her
own, assured and beautiful...She does a splendid job of building a whole out of
these parts. Each story can easily stand alone, yet every new one contains
an object or memory we've seen in a previous story, usually from another
perspective. The overall effect is one of panorama, the sense that though we
haven't met everyone in Abbott Falls, we've cast a good long glance at the range
of hopes and heartaches the town
contains."
-- Cleveland Plain Dealer
"Ernie's Ark [contains] the subtly
disguised idea that anger, loss, and desperation are related and must be
confronted...The loving character portraits that form her stories help us
understand not only the people of Maine but also the human condition...Though
Wood admires the people with whom she shares Maine, she neither patronizes nor
reveres them. They regret, they love, they rally around each other, they
hope. [Abbott Falls] is not such a bad place to live." --
Boston Globe
"Wood's touching
collection centers on Abbott Falls, a fictional Maine town economically dependent
on a paper mill whose workers are on strike. Limning the intertwined lives of a
small number of characters, the stories offer glimpses into the pivotal events
of their lives...These quirky stories reaffirm faith in human resilience, even
when adversity brings out the worst in human nature." --
Booklist
"Nine linked stories revolve around a beleaguered
Maine paper-mill town in Ernie's Ark. Ernie Whitten is laid off three weeks
before his retirement and constructs an ark in his backyard as a tribute to his
dying wife, Marie. The CEO of the company
that owns the mill takes a road trip with his estranged daughter and the results
are both hilarious and harrowing. Monica Wood (My Only Story) does a remarkable
job of illuminating the characters' inner lives-from disgruntled union workers
to a flower store owner in a troubled marriage-skillfully layering
their brief but complex stories with humor, empathy, and melancholy."
-- Publishers
Weekly
"Because another book about a dying
factory town in Maine won the Pulitzer Prize this year, it would be easy to make
Monica Wood's "Ernie's Ark" suffer by comparison. Yet Wood's slim,
thoughtful short-story collection doesn't let us. Whereas Richard Russo's
panoramic Empire Falls is practically civic biography, the town of Abbott
Falls, Maine, in Ernie's Ark is a painful afterthought lodged in the
souls of its characters [who] alternate between major and minor roles like
players in a Robert Altman film. Wood handles each voice with such grace that
she disappears inside it right away. . .Ernie's Ark ultimately asks
what our response to sorrow says about us. Looming like a silent smokestack is
Abbott Falls itself, the tragedy each of the characters share. Held up to Wood's
previous two novels -- longer, thorough examinations of a single relationship --
Ernie's Ark might seem a bit slight. And yet like an honest
day's work, it is both simple and more than enough." -- San Francisco
Chronicle
"An eight-month strike has shivered
apart Abbott Falls as neatly as though it were a chunk of mica; in her stories,
Wood takes these fragments and holds them up to the light, revealing a world at
once self-contained and wonderfully complex...It's a fine collection."
-- Down East Magazine
"Ernie's Ark contains all the
depth and range of emotions that a full-length novel enjoys....Wood's stories,
filled with hope and light, are a rarity and a welcome relief. Her strength is
her ability to create clear and sympathetic voices for each of her many
characters. By the time you finish reading, you will have a whole chorus of
voices in your head, each echoing the rhythms of small-town life." -- Titan
Magazine
"[Colorful, well-developed] characters
alternate between major and minor roles from story to story, a technique that
works to build a cohesive whole...The overall effect is panorama, the sense that
although we haven't met everyone in Abbott Falls, we've seen the hopes and
heartaches of the town's residents. This work brings readers through all
the depth and range of emotion that a full-length novel does, and by the time
the last page is turned, the characters therein will be engraved upon the
reader's mind." -- Discover Maine: Maine's History Magazine
"Wood's gift as a writer is to invest
her stories with real emotion...Take the title story, in which a laid-off
pipefitter builds an ark in the back yard to please his dying wife...Wood uses
deceptively simple language and an obvious sympathy for her characters to keep
the tale triumphantly afloat." -- Casco Bay Weekly
"The stories have a collective
movement...and it all comes together in a way that is both gripping and
moving. By the end of the book, we know the characters very well and feel
affection and sympathy for all of them...it is a testament to Wood's skill as a
writer that she is able to present so many points of view with such
empathy." -- Wolf Moon Press: Journal of Art and Opinion
