Crows Over a Wheatfield - Hardcover

Sharp, Paula

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0747531129 ISBN 13: 9780747531128

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, 1997

Synopsis

This is the story of Melanie Ratleer, a judge who is approaching the peak of her career with the anguished awareness that she has long since abandoned herself to the comforting impersonality of her work. Paula Sharp is the author of "The Woman Who Was Not All There" and "The Imposter".

About this title

Review

Book-of-the-Month Club If you felt forlorn as you turned the last page of "The World According to Garp "or "The Joy Luck Club," certain it would be impossible to find another book that so beautifully captured the idiosyncratic joys and miseries of family life -- despair no more. Paula Sharp's "Crows Over a Wheatfield "is about to become your next book.

From the Back Cover

Spanning a course of thirty years, Crows over a Wheatfield is the story of Melanie Ratleer, a judge who is approaching the summit of her career with an anguished awareness that she has long since abandoned herself to the comforting impersonality of her work. Melanie has come to the law under the massive shadow of her father, a brilliant and notorious litigator as despotic at home as he is in the courtroom. His young wife, daughter, and especially his son have suffered under his unpredictable and merciless rages, which culminate in a tragedy that tears the family apart and sends its members away in flight to their own safe havens. Years afterward Melanie pays a visit to the small Wisconsin town where her stepmother and brother have settled and grown close to a colorfully unorthodox minister and his daughter, the flamboyant and provocative Mildred Steck. The young women quickly become friends, but as the summer passes, Melanie gradually learns that Mildred's family life is beset by its own brutality, which only another tragedy can bring to an end. After a decade in hiding Mildred becomes the focus of national attention when she organizes an underground movement on behalf of women and children fleeing unjust custody rulings and domestic violence. When the movement finally decides to take a public position on a notorious custody case, the drama that ensues forces Melanie to confront a test of her principles, as well as the many long-avoided ghosts of her past.

Edition details

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0747531129
• ISBN 13: 9780747531128
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 416