Books in Brief: A Timeless Place

A Timeless Place, by Ellen Bromfield Geld (Doubleday, 194 pp., $5.95).

The temptation was irresistible. Ellen Geld is herself a farmer (Brazilian coffee) and a novelist (The Garlic Tree), so why not draw on the last years of her father’s life —when Louis Bromfield had retired to Malabar Farm—as the setting for a novel. A Timeless Place is about a farm in the Midwest which Thomas Barr’s daughter and her husband—a Jew from Brooklyn with an overwhelming desire to return to the land—have taken over after the father’s death and are trying to make a go of. Barr had failed as a farmer because of latent flaws in his character which led, in later life, to arrogance and megalomania, well laced with drink. Years later when it begins to look as if the Fagans will succeed, the land vultures appear on the scene. Will Thomas Barr’s farm be seized by the state to be preserved for posterity as it was when he lived there (which will make way for the developers with their hamburger stands, motels, trailer parks), or will the Fagans be given the opportunity to prove that there is still room in America for the one-family successful working farm, which was what Thomas Barr’s farming venture was all about? That’s the major conflict and, alas, it’s not good enough. The book never comes to life. I suspect that Mrs. Geld, who proved in The Garlic Tree—her marvelous novel of a year or so ago about life on Brazilian coffee plantations—that she has the novelist’s eye and ear, keeps bumping into childhood memories so close that she can neither obliterate them nor reshape them believably, convincingly. A Timeless Place promises a bit more to the Ellen Geld fan than it delivers.

PL

About the Author

Priscilla L. Buckley

Featured Tags

A Timeless Place, by Ellen Bromfield Geld (Doubleday, 194 pp., $5.95).

The temptation was irresistible. Ellen Geld is herself a farmer (Brazilian coffee) and a novelist (The Garlic Tree), so why not draw on the last years of her father’s life —when Louis Bromfield had retired to Malabar Farm—as the setting for a novel. A Timeless Place is about a farm in the Midwest which Thomas Barr’s daughter and her husband—a Jew from Brooklyn with an overwhelming desire to return to the land—have taken over after the father’s death and are trying to make a go of. Barr had failed as a farmer because of latent flaws in his character which led, in later life, to arrogance and megalomania, well laced with drink. Years later when it begins to look as if the Fagans will succeed, the land vultures appear on the scene. Will Thomas Barr’s farm be seized by the state to be preserved for posterity as it was when he lived there (which will make way for the developers with their hamburger stands, motels, trailer parks), or will the Fagans be given the opportunity to prove that there is still room in America for the one-family successful working farm, which was what Thomas Barr’s farming venture was all about? That’s the major conflict and, alas, it’s not good enough. The book never comes to life. I suspect that Mrs. Geld, who proved in The Garlic Tree—her marvelous novel of a year or so ago about life on Brazilian coffee plantations—that she has the novelist’s eye and ear, keeps bumping into childhood memories so close that she can neither obliterate them nor reshape them believably, convincingly. A Timeless Place promises a bit more to the Ellen Geld fan than it delivers.