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Title details for The View from Mount Joy by Lorna Landvik - Available

The View from Mount Joy

by Lorna Landvik
Robertson Dean
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
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1 of 1 copy available
THE VIEW FROM MOUNT JOY, Lorna Landvik’s delightfully quirky and intensely moving new novel, is about the unexpected pleasures found in living a good life.
When hunky teenage hockey player Joe Andreson moves 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 throughout Joe’s life.
Years later, having once dreamed of a career in pro hockey or as a globetrotting journalist, 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. For Joe, everyday life is its own roller-coaster ride, and all he wants to do is hold on tight.
The path Kristi has charged down, on the other hand, is as wild as Joe’s is tame–or at least that’s how it appears. 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.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Awards

  • Release date

    September 4, 2007

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781415942260
      • File size: 337642 KB
      • Duration: 11:43:25

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      What begins as a high school boy's endearing reflections on Midwestern life in the 1970s meanders into a survey of his life. Robertson Dean's deep, resonant voice is ideally suited to this first-person account by Joe, a typical teenager interested in hockey, music, and girls. Dean does a fine job with character voices of all types. The weakness in this novel is what it becomes after Joe reaches adulthood--a collection of minor moments examined minutely while larger issues are left unexplored. The fun-loving Joe of youth becomes an unrecognizably sentimental middle-aged man who agonizes over every decision. In spite of the uneven narrative, Dean holds the listener's attention with his good humor and mild delivery. L.B.F. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      May 7, 2007
      L
      andvik'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.

    • Publisher's Weekly

      December 24, 2007
      Narrator Robertson Dean strikes the perfect note in the first-person role of Joe, a high school hockey star whose life throws him several unexpected curveballs that land him in a very different place from where he'd always imagined. While his life didn't turn out as planned, he gradually realizes that maybe he's exactly where he's supposed to be. As the adult Joe looking back over his life, Dean tells the story in a pitch-perfect ironic, self-deprecating tone that conveys simultaneously Joe's complex mix of vulnerability, cynicism and hope. Dean doesn't create actual character voices, but he conveys the personalities and emotions so well that the listener is completely drawn into the story. He's particularly good at popular, manipulative Kristi, a high school cheerleader turned radio evangelist and Joe's on-again, off-again lover. The abridgment of this engaging and believable story is seamless. Simultaneous release with the Ballantine hardcover (Reviews, May 7).

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Lorna Landvik's lead character, Joe Andreson, is a lovable guy leading an average life who demonstrates extraordinary integrity. Landvik's story starts while Joe is in high school and follows him to his fifties, when he has a wife and a pack of kids. Along the way, we meet his quirky best friend, Darva; his on-again-off-again flame, Kristi; and a warm and loving cast of secondary characters. Robertson Dean's deep, mature voice doesn't quite fit the young Joe at the outset, but as Joe grows into maturity and his values evolve, Dean's voice comes to be a perfect fit. Dean keeps the dialogue moving and brings a fitting warmth to the characters in Joe's life. H.L.S. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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