The Floor of the Sky

The Floor of the Sky
By Pamela Carter Joern
University of Nebraska Press
Lincoln, Nebraska
978-0-8032-7631-4
2006

Summary

Toby Jenkins is a widow in the Nebraska Sandhills, and is in danger of losing the family ranch to investors. When Toby’s 16-year-old granddaughter shows up at the farm pregnant, the hidden truths Toby has held back from extended family comes out bit by bit.

Toby’s late father, the overbearing Luther Bolden, has been dead for many years, but still reigns supreme at the family ranch in many ways. As Toby is about to lose the ranch and the family home, the Alhambra, memories of Luther remain in the way he ruined the lives of all three of his children, and his ranch hand George. Each child was emotionally damaged in some way, as was George, and Luther delighted in their pain.

Lila is a 16-year-old who is bitter with the world since her parents splitand her mom became extremely involved in her career, and her father is too busy with his nonexistent music career. Even though she is only 16, Lila has developed a keen sense of a person’s character. She knows her grandmother is hiding something and Lila has to find the truth out no matter what.

Gertie is Toby’s extremely bitter older sister who feels nothing but contempt for everyone around her. In Gerties mind, she is the one that is suffering injustices since she is upright and pure while her wild sister gets the family ranch. Gertie is mad because she lost her farm to a no-good (in her mind only) grandson when her son-in-law was killed. Toby intensely dislikes Gertie, and doesn’t make life any easier for her and even manages to do it when she doesn’t mean to. Gerties beloved husband Howard has Alzheimer’s, but as Howard slips further Gertie is consistently taught the true nature of their relationship.

George is the loyal ranch hand who stays and works on the ranch because it is where his wife, child, and younger half-brother David are buried. Both are buried in the Bolden family cemetery. George feels a need to stay on the ranch to watch over Toby, and also watch over their brother John. Poor Johnny was disliked by Luther and was shell-shocked from World War II. Alcoholism got the best of him as did his lingering nightmares.

But this summer was the summer the demons left behind by Luther would finally be put to rest.

Impressions

This book was an Alex Award winner in 2007. An Alex Award goes to books that were written for adult, but would also appeal to young adults. The book itself is dark, and I’m not normally a fan of dark books, but it fits the mood. The cover art is black and white and dark, which I found strangely comforting. The book is written in such a way that the reader may think they know what is coming up, or that they can guess what the truth really is, but it is not. It kept me on my toes and I did not want to put the book down. As a reader I felt for Lila as she struggled with putting her baby up for adoption and the automatic judgmental looks she got from people in the city. . I think teens will enjoy this book. It deals with some tough topics: love, divorce, drugs, teenage pregnancy, religion, and teen marriage. It does not sugar coat topics and teens will love this book for that reason. They don't want Lila skipping through her pregnancy like everything is going to be okay and the same as it used to be because life isn't like that. Teens know that life is not tied up in a pretty bow, all problems are not solved, and not everyone lives happily ever after.

Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Toby Jenkins, now 72, has been living all her life in the same ornate Sears, Roebuck farmhouse in the Nebraska Sandhills her father bought for her mother back in 1920. For now, Toby aims to stay there with her cranky self-righteous sister, Gertie, despite the local weasel banker's pressure to sell. Toby is widowed, resolute and land-scarred; a string of family deaths, tragedies and abandonments have left Toby and Gertie with no one to pass the place on to. Then Toby's 16-year-old pregnant granddaughter, Lila, arrives from Minneapolis. At first the unloved, metal-studded Lila, the child of Toby's adoptive daughter, a bitter airline stewardess, is surly and ungrateful, but eventually her curiosity about country rituals and her grandmother's life leads her to the family cemetery and to archives harboring long-buried family secrets. Playwright Joern's characters are as stern as the land, and the world of her debut novel is sturdy and memorable. (Sept.)
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From Booklist
Joern intricately weaves together a compelling family saga and a beautifully rendered paean to the land her characters love and are struggling to preserve. Rooted in the Nebraska Sandhills, Toby, an aging widow, lives with her older sister in the house their parents built before the Depression. Toby invites Lila, her pregnant 16-year-old granddaughter, to stay with them until her baby is born, in part to assuage the long-standing rift between Toby and Lila's mother. While sifting through her feelings about her pregnancy, impending motherhood, and adoption, Lila simultaneously begins digging into family secrets, including the death of Toby's first love in an accident caused by her father and the son Toby gave up for adoption months later. Surrounding the intertwined details of this family's loves, jealousies, and regrets like a cocoon is their emotional bond with the land itself--the land they're in danger of losing to a ranching conglomerate. Joern's lyrical and painterly descriptions of the vast Sandhills are the perfect backdrop for this subtle drama. Deborah Donovan
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