Last Studebaker - Hardcover

Rezensionen

This novel is a rich evocation of life in South Bend, Indiana, where the closing of the Studebaker plant has had a disastrous effect on one family. Lois is in the process of divorcing her husband, searching for her father, and losing her home. She and her two teenaged daughters are forced to find a new place to live. Henry, Lois's new landlord, has been emotionally and physically scarred in an automobile accident. When he unexpectedly returns to live in his house with Lois and her girls, these appealing characters form a new and unusual family grouping. Hemley accurately depicts the changing nature of relationships and the acquisitiveness prevailing in American life, with its garage sales, auctions, and emphasis on fancy cars. Recommended for public libraries.
- Stephanie Furtsch, New Rochelle P.L., N.Y.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

This affecting, nostalgic drama of family dysfunction and reunion takes place in present-day South Bend, Ind., where the Studebaker plant, shut down in 1963, still casts its shadow over dented lives. Lois Kulwicki, divorced mother of two and devotee of garage sales, struggles to gain independence from her selfish, seemingly oh-so-reasonable ex-husband Willy, in whose house she still lives a year after their divorce. Gail, their teenage daughter, worried that she is pregnant, sees herself as the only sane person in a world of flaky adults. Finally thrown out by Willy, who's blithely remarrying, Lois and the girls rent a house and acquire an unwanted tenant: Henry Martin, a disoriented wreck ever since his girlfriend and her son were killed in a car accident. Lois is haunted by the memory of the father she hasn't seen in 25 years; her mother abandoned him after he lost his job at the Studebaker plant and went dotty. Is he still alive? The answer will involve a cross-country ride in a Studebaker, which serves as the unifying symbol of a bygone era when companies supposedly treated employees like family. Intimately familiar with America's Rust Belt, Hemley ( All You Can Eat ) draws a quirky, droll road map of the human heart, with all its foibles and dangers.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Hemley follows his short story collection (All You Can Eat, 1988) with this first novel about a dysfunctional family. Lois and Willy Kulwicki are about to break up. Lois will move out of their South Bend, Indiana, home with their kids, Gail and Meg, so that Willy's new ``girl'' Alice can move in. Meanwhile, the parents will continue giving as much love to objects as to their daughters, Willy ``reconditioning'' the Studebaker wrecks in their yard, Lois acquiring useless collectibles at garage sales. Whether their separate interests are cause or symptom of their troubles is unclear, as is the cause of Lois's instability--has she ever recovered from the most shocking year of her childhood, 1963? That was when Studebaker's South Bend plant shut down; her father Rudy, a company man, couldn't cope with his dismissal, and her mother dumped him, just like that, outside a Stuckey's in West Virginia. At any rate, life gets worse when Lois and daughters move into their new (leased) home. Its owner, a sad sack called Henry Martin, suddenly shows up in the kitchen. Henry has been a basket case since his near-death in a car crash, and Lois's decision to shelter him fragments the family further as teenager Gail turns spiteful. Lois flips, blowing the grocery money on a phonograph at an estate sale and then, in shame and confusion, hitting the road for West Virginia, where she has a cheerless reunion with her father before being retrieved by Henry and the kids. Dippy Lois, weird Henry, and mean-spirited Gail make for depressing company; the domestic-crisis novel calls for a greater delicacy of calibration than Hemley's. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.