Without Grace

WITHOUT GRACE, has been awarded the Silver Medal for Book of the Year 2005 by ForeWord Magazine and given First Place for Fiction by the DIY Book Festival. Jada Press and the New York Book Festival also gave her novel honorable mention.

About Without Grace

After the death of her grandmother, Vicky Finley is left to create a place for herself in a houseful of men and becomes consumed by the notion of finding Grace, the mother who abandoned her family when Vicky was just a baby. Vicky’s devoted and protective older brother Kevin does his best to look after her while fighting to keep their land and spare their farming community from a ruthless developer who threatens to forever change the world they know.

The Finleys learn firsthand how memories can betray us, how secrets of the past can burden the present, and how tragedy can test our resolve. And as Vicky ambitiously pursues her passion for cooking, honors a promise to her brother, and manages to bring a struggling community together, she discovers what really makes a family.

Without Grace is a heartening portrait of small-town life and a tender and triumphant coming-of-age tale about the complexities and comforts of family and the healing that comes with letting go of the past.

Words of praise for Without Grace:

Without Grace is so skillful, full of surprises, and full of important ideas. It captures North Country life, but turns the particular into the universal, as a truly good novel must do. It’s a story of and for rural people everywhere. And though it’s set in the 1970’s, it offers insight into what’s happening in so many Adirondack communities today.

-Bibi Wein, author of the award-winning memoir The Way Home: A Wilderness Journey

I have to admit, not many novels bring to mind To Kill a Mockingbird–not so much because people rarely tell good stories about rural America, as much as it is such a rarity to be blown away by the writing of said country life.
But such is the case with Without Grace by Carol Hoenig. Grace tells the story of (and by) little Vicky Finley, at the onset of the death of her grandmother (and the only female leadership in her life.) Over time, it opens up wounds (and questions) about her own mother who mysteriously abandoned the family, and forces her to learn from (and deal with) her household of men.
The book opens: “The first time I began to understand that the words gone and dead have different meanings I was about six years old.”
Ms. Hoenig so eloquently tells the tale (and so carefully grasps the mind of a child) of a girl becoming a lady, learning about ambition, being the only female in a home of strong men, and dealing with inevitable loss. The story reads like poetry and demands to be read in one sitting.
This book is dynamite–literature as it was meant to be: at its finest. Don’t trust me? Well, you should, of course. But in case you need your arm twisted, this novel comes with blurbs from Malachy McCourt, Michael Malone and Rona Jaffe–not mention that iUniverse dropped this baby into its Star program prior to publication. Keep your eye on this one–that is, when they’re not glued to the pages inside.

– PODdy Mouth

Searching, soulful…Without Grace is a heartfelt exploration of that small town in all of us, our bittersweet Place of Angels.

– Arthur Kent, journalist, documentary filmmaker, and author of Warlord Reborn

Like Scout Finch and Mattie Ross and Ellen Foster before her, Vicky, the young heroine of Without Grace, has grit and will and insight, a wry eye for the world around her, and a deeply engaging way of finding there a place of her own.

– Michael Malone, author of Handling Sin

Without Grace is not indeed without grace. Told through the consciousness of a young girl coming of age, it is a masterfully crafted tale of love, devotion, hope, and the search for personal identity. A monument to the power of the human spirit to make sense out of a mundane reality that can take fortuitously what it gives, this one will surely make you think compassionately about what really matters in life!

– Elliot D. Cohen, Ph.D., author of What would Aristotle do? Self-Control through the Power of Reason (Prometheus, 2003)

Without Grace is the story of a girl’s search for her mother, a subject that cannot help but make the reader, and this reader, wonder what is going to happen next.

– Rona Jaffe, author of The Best of Everything

Without Grace drew me in with its tale of the complicated threads that hold a family together and when cut can send them spinning apart. It’s a beautiful story of how determination can stand up to almost anything and is the declaration of a gifted new writer in Carol Hoenig.

– Martha Randolph Carr, author of Wired and The Sitting Sisters

If you begin reading Carol Hoenig’s Without Grace at the start of the work day, you might as well call and tell your boss that you are engaged in a work that transcends the day. A meal, it is as smooth as lobster bisque, a grand main course, and what a dessert! What more can we want in a book? Get it and plan to take the day off.

– Malachy McCourt, author of A Monk Swimming

Without Grace is a story of tragic loss and subsequent self discovery. Vicky Finley’s tale is haunting and unforgettable, as Hoenig’s narrative deftly draws us into the drama of her character’s life.

– Susan Shapiro Barash, author of THE NEW WIFE: The Evolving Role of the American Wife

Book-Club-Queen Review: http://www.book-club-queen.com/good-book-recommendations-4.html

“All the while I was reading, I kept thinking this is as good, if not better, than Isaac Bashevis Singer. You took life, and articulated it as if you were one of Robert Heinlens, ‘Fair Witnesses’. It was about the evolution of a human being, and the sometimes agonizing decisions we are forced to make on our drives to center ourselves.” –Shawn Phillips, award-winning rock pioneer (www.shawnphillips.com)

For more reviews, visit Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Without-Grace-Carol-Hoenig/dp/1583480366/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1236522845&sr=1-1