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Library | Call Number | Status |
|---|---|---|
Searching... McMinnville Public Library | Landvik, L. | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Lyons Public Library | F LANDVIK | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
The northwoods town of Tall Pine, Minnesota, is home to a collection of characters only novelist Lorna Landvik could have created. And they all hang out at the Cup O'Delight cafe, where Lee O'Leary serves up good food and heavenly coffee with a lot of heart. The most excitement this quaint, quirky paradise sees is when the locals gather for the inspirational evenings they call the Tall Pine Polka.
But things really start jumping when a Hollywood movie crew rolls into town -- and zooms in on Lee's best friend, Fenny Ness, to star in the romantic comedy they're shooting. It's just the shot in the arm the melancholy young woman needs, until an itinerant musician named Big Bill comes along and shoots her in the heart with Cupid's arrow. The trouble is, Lee's also bewitched by Big Bill ... and the triangle will test her and Fenny's friendship in ways neither could imagine.
Author Notes
Author Lorna Lanvik was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1954. After high school graduation, she and a friend traveled in Europe and settled in Bavaria where they worked as hotel chamber maids and English tutors. After returning to the United States, she briefly attended the University of Minnesota before moving to San Francisco to perform stand-up and improvisational comedy. She moved to Los Angeles, where she did stand-up comedy at the Comedy Store and The Improv as well as worked a variety of temporary jobs including one at the Playboy Mansion and another at Atlantic Records.
She is an actor and playwright who has performed in plays she has written and produced. She has appeared in numerous plays including Bad Seed, Lunatic Cellmates, and Valley of the Dolls. She has written six novels and currently lives in Minneapolis with her husband and two daughters.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Having previously created beguiling characters in Patty Jane's House of Curl and Your Oasis on Flame Lake, Landvik invites readers to belly up to the counter and join the regulars sipping coffee at Cup O'Delight Caf in Tall Pine, Minn. In this swift-moving romp, Lee O'Leary, the Cup O'Delight owner, is a 210-lb., 40-year-old redhead who fetched up in this north woods tourist town three years ago while fleeing her abusive stockbroker husband. Lee's coffee shop is the daily rendezvous for idiosyncratic locals: shoemaker Pete, suffering unrequited love for Lee; Mary Gore, famous for her bad poetry; Slim, the barking 'Nam vet; and lesbian couple Frau Katte and Miss Penk. When Hollywood invades Tall Pine, the eccentric population triples. Location scouts for a grade-B flick, Ike and Inga, find their perfect leading lady in the book's central figure, 22-year-old Fenny Ness. Ever since her adventurous parents died in an accident in Belize, Fenny has run the local bait and craft shops. Fenny is reluctant, but her friends persuade her to take the Hollywood plunge. Lacking guile or malice, plainspoken Fenny transforms the Hollywood types, standing up to a tyrannical director, flooring more than one nasty talk-show host, and making life-long friends of the other actors. Meanwhile, Fenny struggles to win and keep the man she loves: Big Bill, a half-Polynesian, half-Chippewa musician and athlete, who floats into town to reconnect with his Indian heritage and stirs up romantic rivalries between Fenny and Lee. The endless nattering of Landvik's locals (the tale is told mostly in dialogue) doesn't add up to much in terms of character development, but the lengthy novel is good-natured and zooms along, fueled by zany Minnesota energy. Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club selection; 8-city author tour. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
Landvik's third effort (Your Oasis on Flame Lake, 1997, etc.) has an appealingly wacky frolic to it but induces groans when it strives for serious insight. The far outpost of Tall Pines, Minnesota, is a whirlwind of romance, violence, and minor characters who are downright weird. Fenny, for openers, was born to adventuring parents, who were constantly perplexed by her lack of bravado. When she was 19 (three years ago), they died in a freak accident in Belize (truck, tandem bicycle). In her grief, Fenny began to hang out at Cup O'Delight, a caf owned by Lee, the red-haired and queen-sized heiress who came to Tall Pines fleeing an abusive marriage. Other locals include a Vietnam vet who vocalizes like a dog (post-traumatic stress) and a pair of art-collecting lesbians (one black, with a blond beehive; the other Swiss, with an annoying accent and a fez). While scouting locations, a Hollywood scriptwriter spies the fetching Fenny, and before you know it she's starring in a local shoot. When Big Bill saunters into town'tall, dark, and handsome'both Lee and Fenny fall in love with him and a pas de trois ensues. Meanwhile, Pete, a humble shoemaker, is in love with Lee. Unable to tell her, he secretly makes 'shoes of love' for her. Just as he's about to speak the truth and give her the shoes, Lee's deranged ex-husband bursts into the Cup O'Delight and starts a shooting spree. Pete takes a bullet and dies saving Lee. The shooting disperses everyone else and brings about several ham-handed epiphanies. Eventually, Bill finds himself in a quickie wedding and the father of a love child, but not with the same woman. And Fenny learns that she's brave after all! Happiness and chuckles all around. Not dull, even amusing at times. But with its soap-opera dialogue and just-add-water characters, it will chafe with wanting more. (Author tour)
Booklist Review
Off-kilter characters with grit and humor populate this delightfully quirky novel by the author of Patty Jane's House of Curl (1996). A group of regulars meets at the Cup o' Delight Cafeto share music and friendship in gatherings that coalesce into what the participants call the Tall Pine polka, named after their town in Minnesota. They sing and dance, so comfortable with each other they feel free to be themselves. But two events out of the ordinary become catalysts for dramatic change. First, a movie production crew comes to town and casts Fenny, 22, the youngest polka member, in the lead role. And then Big Bill, a traveling musician, arrives in Tall Pine in search of his roots. Lee, the owner of the cafeand the secret for making the world's best coffee, falls for Big Bill, but Bill only has eyes for Fenny, Lee's best friend. Things get progressively more complicated from there on in, but the group's strong bond allows them to evolve with each unexpected yet inevitable event, good or bad, and there are plenty of both. So vivid and lively are Landvik's characters, readers will wish they could jump in the car and go find the Cup o' Delight, settle in at the counter, and join a high-energy jam session. This is another down-home winner for Landvik, one that will interest fans of Fannie Flagg. --Patty Engelmann