The View from Mount Joy
Lorna Landvik, 2007
Random House
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780345468383
Summary
When teenage hockey player Joe Andreson and his widowed mother move to Minneapolis, Joe falls under the seductive spell of Kristi Casey, Ole Bull High’s libidinous head cheerleader. Joe balances Kristi’s lustful manipulation with the down-to-earth companionship of his smart, platonic girlfriend, Darva. But it is Kristi who will prove to be a temptation (and torment) throughout Joe’s life.
Years later, Joe can’t believe that life has deposited him in the aisles of Haugland Foods. But he soon learns that being a grocer is like being the mayor of a small town: His constituents confide astonishing things and always appreciate Joe’s generous dispensing of the milk of human kindness.
The path Kristi has charged down, on the other hand, is as wild as Joe’s is tame. But who has really risked more? Who has lived more? And who is truly happy? As Joe discovers, sometimes people are lucky enough to be standing in the one place where the view of the world is breathtaking, if only they’ll open their eyes to all there is to see. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Rasied—Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
• Education—attended University of Minnesota
• Currently—lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota
Lorna Landvik is the bestselling author of Patty Jane’s House of Curl, Your Oasis on Flame Lake, The Tall Pine Polka, Welcome to the Great Mysterious, Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons, Oh My Stars, and The View from Mount Joy.
Married and the mother of two daughters, she is also an actor, playwright, and dog park attendee with the handsome Julio. Lorna Landvik wishes everyone holiday greetings of peace, love, joy, and a renewed commitment to fun. (From the publisher.)
More
From an interview with editors at Barnes and Noble:
Q: Where do you get your inspiration?
Sometimes, like Flannery [in Angry Housewives], I find inspiration everywhere—from a billboard, a snatch of music, a scent. Other times, I have no idea where it comes from: all of a sudden, a character appears unbidden in my head, with the urgent desire that I write about her or him.
Q: How did a book club end up at the center of [Angry Housewives]?
After the publication of my first novel, I got invited to speak at a book club and since then I've been to dozens and dozens. What always impresses me is the fun and friendship of these groups, some of which have been together for decades, and that's why I decided to write about one.
Q: Which books would make your greatest-hits list?
A short list would include To Kill a Mockingbird, Handling Sin (both of which are selections in the book), Huckleberry Finn, Great Expectations, and maybe a book I have great affection for, the Dick and Jane books, because they were the books that taught me how to read.
Q: What is your average workday like?
I like to work every day, but that doesn't mean I do. During the school year, I usually take a walk in the morning, come home, make a latte, and read the papers, and then I try to settle down and work. But I don't stick to a regular schedule—if I have something really important going on in the day (a lunch date, a movie), I'll work later in the afternoon or at night. My family's very accommodating and I've also learned to write among them, amid distraction.
Q: What do you do when the words won't come?
I get up, find the chocolate, and if that doesn't help, I might read and see if someone else's ability to tell a story can help fire up mine.
(Interview from Barnes & Noble.)
Book Reviews
A delightful journey.... full of humor and poignancy and the potential for joy in everyday life.
Charlotte Observer
Deeply satisfying.... Bursting with the same deliciously deadpan dialogue that is now a Landvik trademark.... [The View from Mount Joy provides] quite possibly Landvik’s most lovable character to date.
Minneapolis Star Tribune
Landvik's latest light drama opens as Joe Andreson transfers into a Minneapolis high school as a class of '72 senior. Like everyone else, Joe has a major thing for head cheerleader Kristi Casey—a version of Reese Witherspoon's character in Election. Joe gets some action, but is estranged from Kristi by graduation. As the years pass, and they stay in touch sporadically, Joe, who narrates, can't quite let go of his infatuation. He becomes an innovative grocer, still unmarried at mid-book, and Kristi transforms into a Bible-thumping radio/televangelist. Joe builds solid relationships with his mother and her new husband, and reconnects with high school friend Darva Pratt (who returns to town with her daughter, Flora), while Kristi sets her sights on the White House. Landvik (Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons) deftly mixes humor and pathos in Kristi's ditzy On the Air with God radio show, starkly contrasted by her quietly powerful portrait of Joe, a man with real family values.
Publishers Weekly
In 1971, high school senior Joe Anderson moves to Minnesota with his widowed mother. Joe is a wonderful young man who plays hockey and piano, works in the local grocery, and is nice to his mother. So what's his flaw? He is attracted to Kristi Casey, the wildly fun cheerleader who is every boy's fantasy and who introduces Joe to oral sex, marijuana, and acid trips. As Joe moves through life from high school to adulthood and marriage, Kristi is always there to tempt him, even when she becomes an evangelist. Landvik is a wonderful storyteller, and Joe is an attractive character, perhaps too good to be true. However, some of the book club readers and fans who enjoyed Landvik's other novels (e.g., Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons) may be uncomfortable with the sex and drugs and Kristi's hypocritical life as an evangelist and the wife of a politician. As long as librarians understand that this new work is more explicit than Landvik's previous novels, this is recommended for most public libraries.
Lesa M. Holstine - Library Journal
Once again displaying her genuine affection for Minnesota's salt-of-the-earth people and offbeat customs, Landvik's latest homespun homage is pure bliss. —Carol Haggas
Booklist
A pleasing character study following the life of Joe Andreson, from his misadventures in high school to reflective middle age. Although Joe narrates his tale, it is a story dominated by women, from his kind-hearted, widowed mother and his sophisticated lesbian aunt Beth (the three live together, gathering around the piano to sing show tunes) to the two young women who shape his adult life-Kristi Casey and Darva Pratt. In high school, Kristi is the golden girl-head cheerleader, honor student, feared and revered by all who come in contact with her ferocious smile. At turns cruel and alluring, Kristi takes a shine to Joe and the two have trysts in the AV room, a secret kept from Kristi's boyfriend. Joe even keeps it from his best friend Darva, a gifted artist and bourgeoning bohemian with plans to escape 1970s Minneapolis for Paris. Darva does go to Paris, while Joe goes to college on a hockey scholarship. Kristi and Joe meet from time to time in rural motels, but their relationship is little more than a strange mix of Kristi's confessions and impersonal sex. After graduation Kristi disappears, Joe inherits a grocery store and Darva returns from Europe, with tiny Flora in her arms. Though they maintain a platonic relationship, Darva and Joe live together and raise Flora, as Joe makes a success out of the market, thanks to his idiosyncratic approach to business. Meanwhile, Kristi reappears on the air as a right-wing evangelist doling out moral platitudes to her radio listeners. Joe and company are shocked by Kristi's new persona, and yet the girl most likely to succeed at any cost still has a few surprises left for the folks back home. Most of Joe's story is a real charmer—the questioning, sex-obsessed teen, the slightly lost 30 year old—but as the story creeps past middle age, Landvik seems to tire, and the narrative wraps up with the expected closing events. Warmhearted (if a bit uneven) tale of a sensitive man's journey through life.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Do you think Joe and Darva secretly yearned for a relationship with each other? Can a strictly platonic relationship such as theirs occur in real life?
2. How much of Joe’s life and personality was shaped by the loss of his father at such a young age?
3. Who has lived a more fulfilling life–Joe, with his simple, quiet life, or Kristi, with her adventurous life in the spotlight?
4. Did Joe give up on his hockey dreams too easily? Was he being cowardly and taking the easy road?
5. Do you applaud Kristi’s ambitious nature and her refusal to let her dreams get away from her?
6. Joe and Kristi seem to be fated to cross paths time and time again. What is their fascination with each other?
7. It’s obvious that the women in Joe’s life greatly influenced him, but how did his relationships with the men in his life shape him?
8. Was it fair for Lorna Landvik to feed into the typical cheerleader stereotypes?
9. Does Kristi mistake power and fame for happiness? Is she capable of being truly happy?
10. If Darva had not died, do you think Joe would have found happiness? Would he have stayed unmarried, living with his best friend and her daughter?
11. All of the characters experience happiness, tragedy, failures, and successes. Do you think The View from Mount Joy realistically portrays the progression of a life?
12. Did Kristi really love Tuck or did she love the fame that life with him would bring?
13. Jenny, the love of Joe’s life, plays a minor role in the book, compared to Darva and Kristi. Why do you think Lorna Landvik does this?
14. Is Joe a believable narrator? Would you have rather had both Kristi and Joe narrate the story?
(Questions issued by publishers.)
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