Kate Maloy | Vermont Storyteller

March 28, 2008

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Kate Maloy spoke to us today about her novel Every Last Cuckoo, about a 75 year old native Vermonter. We talked about Maloy’s Quaker faith, and about her success with this new book, now in its 3rd printing in the last few months.More reviews about Kate Maloy’s book Every Last Cuckoo from her website http://www.katemaloy.com:

Boston Globe

. . . After losing the beloved husband who shared her nest for many years, Sarah finds herself providing a home for a variety of “cuckoos”–family, friends, and strangers in need. The life she had anticipated as a solitary widow is replaced by new pleasures and frustrations. . . Maloy nicely portrays the long, imperfect, but still lusty marriage of Sarah and husband Charles, moves gracefully through the shock of loss, and charts the steps back into community. But what feels most original and moving is Maloy’s sense of how Sarah sees herself connected to other generations: “How many girls and women she had been–she carried a multitude inside who shared only memory and character traits.” Boston Globe, Sunday, January 20, 2008.

MSNBC.com

In grief, many people withdraw. That may have been Sarah Lucas’ first instinct after the 75-year-old resident of rural Vermont lost her husband, Charles, because of an injury during a tough winter. Instead, Sarah recalled her days growing up during the Depression, when her parents took in boarders and shared what they had. Sarah decides to do the same with a strange collection of misfits in “Every Last Cuckoo,” the debut novel by Kate Maloy. Sarah’s choice to fill up her empty house brings with it some unexpected developments, each making her life richer in some way. Maloy wrote a well-received memoir called “A Stone Bridge North” about her Quaker faith and life in Vermont. “Every Last Cuckoo” is an impressive step in a new literary direction.MSNBC, Sunday, January 20, 2008.

Times-Picayune

Maloy’s novel grabs the reader by the heart — it is rare indeed to find such assured fiction about love that endures over time. As her nest expands to include the cuckoos who have sought refuge, Sarah Lucas grows in wisdom and love, and her heart heals. In this portrait of a long and loving marriage, Maloy gives us a real human family, with all its love and conflict and change, as well as a look at the richness that can come with age. [New Orleans] Times-Picayune, January 23, 2008.

More Magazine

A “Don’t Miss Book,” More Magazine, February, 2008

The Oregonian

In an American fictional tradition that rarely addresses the elderly on any significant level, Oregon writer Kate Maloy’s debut novel stands out with a 75-year-old woman as its centerpiece. . . “Every Last Cuckoo” is mostly a riveting read. Its tenderly wrought portrayal of elderly life has an unexpectedly powerful effect, revealing fictional possibilities we’d either forgotten about or never considered at all. The Oregonian, February 3, 2008.