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    Juliet in August
    Juliet in August
    Juliet in August
    Audiobook11 hours

    Juliet in August

    Written by Dianne Warren

    Narrated by Cassandra Campbell

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Juliet, Saskatchewan, is a blink-and-you-miss-it kind of town-a dusty oasis on the edge of the Little Snake sand hills. It's easy to believe that nothing of consequence takes place there. But the hills vibrate with life, and the town's heart beats in the rich and overlapping stories of its people: the rancher afraid to accept responsibility for the land his adoptive parents left him; the bank manager grappling with a sudden understanding of his own inadequacy; a shy couple, well beyond middle age, struggling with the recognition of their feelings for each other. And somewhere, lost in the sand, a camel named Antoinette.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateJul 5, 2012
    ISBN9781452678238
    Juliet in August
    Author

    Dianne Warren

    DIANNE WARREN is the author of the Governor General’s Award–winning novel Cool Water, as well as the novel Liberty Street, three books of short fiction and three plays. Her play Serpent in the Night Sky was short-listed for a Governor General’s Award for Drama. She is the recipient of the Marian Engel Award for a female writer in mid-career, and the Cheryl and Henry Kloppenburg Award for Literary Excellence. Warren lives with her husband, a visual artist, in Regina, Saskatchewan.

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    Reviews for Juliet in August

    4/5

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    • 5/5
      I truly enjoyed Juliet In August and my mind was soothed by Dianne Warren's beautiful prose.
    • 5/5
      A sparse and beautifully written slice of life in the small town of Juliet, Saskatchewan.Everyday overlapping and intertwining stories of people quietly living their lives. We get to know the people of Juliet first through a bored horse who escapes his trailer and arrives at a farm where the new owner has been contemplating the farm left to him by his adoptive parents now deceased wondering what to do with his life. Seeing the beautiful Arab horse appear in the moonlight he hops on and takes a 100 mile one day ride visiting the people of Juliet along the way and coming to a decision in his own life.We meet a bank manager, a shy older couple, a crazy mother of six, a woman looking to reconnect with her daughter and grandchildren and Antoinette the lost camel….and speaking of Antoinette, my one complaint about the book was not enough of her! I loved this book, I love the slow pace the everyday ordinary people living their lives. A beautifully written book that will stay with me for some time
    • 2/5
      I read this book because it was on the Giller Prize long list and I wanted to get a start on the shortlist before the winner is announced. (I say this every year but only get two or three read.) This book was the only one currently available in the library.

      It takes place in Juliet, Sask., and the town has the status of character in the novel, it is mentioned so often. But to say what the story is about? I couldn't. It's about horses. But it's not, they just work as a prominent motif, along with a camel named Antoinette, (who's long gone from the town by the time this novel takes place,) the sand dunes, pocket watches, and a few other items. It's a "day in the life of" several characters/families/couples of the town and local countryside, some of whose stories coincide, some which barely do. Each storyline has its own grief, each character is trying to identify him or herself, and more or less does by the close of the novel.

      An interesting story, I guess, but I predict it won't make the shortlist. Too conventional for Giller winners. But still good Canadian fiction.
    • 5/5
      If I could write fiction, I would want to write like this: clean, beautiful, graceful prose about a cast of absolutely memorable characters living out a day and a night in a small, hundred mile square in Saskatchewan. I loved it!
    • 5/5
      This cool and still story of the fictional prairie hamlet of Juliet, Saskatchewan for a 24-hour period one August won the Canadian Governor-General’s Award for Fiction in 2010. The ‘Welcome’ sign to Juliet announces a population of 1,011 people but more than you can imagine happens here.Warren draws a selection of the townspeople in a clear and sure voice.Her prose has been described as “leisurely and unpretentious” and like a “drink . . . from a deep well after crossing the parched sand hills of the west”. This is one of the books that you will finish and then sit back and realize that much more happened than you thought was happening.It’s a richly rewarding read.4½ stars
    • 4/5
      Juliet is a small town (just over 1,000 people) in Southern Saskatchewan, near Swift Current. This book follows some of the town residents (and local farmers) for one day. We meet Lee, who has taken over his “family” farm (we learn early on, that Lester and Astrid were not his biological parents); Norval, the town banker, whose daughter, just out of high school, is pregnant and is getting married… neither she nor her fiance are particularly responsible; Blaine, whose farm has failed and he is having trouble making ends meet for him and his family, including six children; and more. I really enjoyed this. I grew up in a small town/farming community in Southern Sask, and loved reading about the area, though this town was meant to be (I believe it’s a fictional town) just north of the Trans-Canada highway by the sand dunes, whereas I lived a ways south of the highway. Either way, it’s not fast-paced, but I was drawn in and interested in the characters, anyway. It actually reminded me a bit of Kent Haruf’s books and his small town characters. It does switch between characters quite frequently, but – for the most part – I was able to fairly quickly figure out who was who and whose perspective we were getting each time.
    • 3/5
      I received this book as a Goodreads first reads winner. This book was a little hard to get into at first. It jumps around to different characters in the small town and covers about 24 hours. You have to concentrate at first to understand what is going on and to keep the characters straight. Once I was able to do that I enjoyed the book. One thing I didn't enjoy - with all the jumping around, I really didn't get to know the characters enough and I wanted to know more. It was a like a quick snapshot of each of them. I'm not a big fan of short stories because I like to know more and I like stories to go for a while and this was like a bunch of short stories thrown together. She is a good writer and it was enjoyable.
    • 5/5
      Ordinary people, extraordinary writing. I loved this. It was slow paced, yet completely mesmerizing as the author gradually builds up the tension around each set of characters. I'd happily read a sequel if there was one!
    • 4/5
      This book gradually increased my interest as I got to know the characters more, and there's plenty of characters to get to know. The reader doesn't become deeply involved in any one character and there's little action or suspense. The book is set in and around a small town in Canada, probably around the turn of the century (from 20th to 21st!). I can see why a couple of people gave this a very low rating - the lack of an apparent focus would really trouble some readers. However its real focus is on the web of connections between people who make up this community. Despite the geographic context being so different from my own urban Australian one, I found plenty of relevance to my own life to reflect on.
    • 5/5
      I loved this book. It is funny, warm, poignant and full of memorable quirky characters and life dramas, each of which rang true. Beautiful, quiet writing.
    • 3/5
      It's always interesting to me when people living in ways that are clearly at odds from the way I live are so much more similar than they are different. I've been reading a few other books lately that go back and forth among the characters in the way she did, almost creating free standing short stories that then come together into a whole. It works well to give you a flavour of Juliet as a small town. Nice.
    • 3/5
      Juliet in August, by Dianne Warren narrated by, Cassandra CampbellI must admit I found this book boring, if it hadn’t been for Cassandra Campbell’s narration I would not have finished this book. This is a slice of life book in the most literal definition it is a day in the life of an assorted group of people in the small town of Juliet, Saskatchewan and no one has a very exciting life. I never really became attached to anyone in this town/story, and didn’t ever come to care about any of them. It is well written but maybe just not my cup of tea, I can’t help but wonder if I need more action and suspense from my books, so maybe it is just my taste that made me not like this book as much as some. I guess I did end up caring for Norval (sad face). The last 2 or so hours I started finally caring a bit about the characters. This is a very quiet book it is a slow story with nothing really exciting happening. These stories don’t have a cohesive link to make them all fit together perfectly, they are jagged and just don’t seem to fit with fluidly. The characters seemed very one dimensional the ones I felt any affinity to were Norval and Shiloh. I can’t help but wonder if I need more action and suspense from my booksCassandra Campbell’s narration is very good with softness when needed, she was able evoke the emotion I believe the author was trying to convey. I only had a small problem with a mispronunciation of the town of Regina which is not pronounced like a name but Reg-I-na (with an eye sound on the I not an E sound). I am honestly not sure I would have finished this without Cassandra’s narration her voice always makes me want to keep listening.3 star book (barely)4 ½ star Narration
    • 4/5
      I frankly struggled with rating this novel. The writing is done very well, with the scene and characters flushed out in detail. August in Juliet tells the story of several characters living in a small Canadian town. Some of them lead quiet lives like the farmer who finds a horse he rides for 100 miles. Others are more flamboyant, like the entrepreneur who buys a camel to give tourists a ride.But the novel really is not the type of thing that I like; my tastes are more lurid favoring murder and mayhem. Still, I think there is some value in the piece as we are reminded that our own towns, city and neighborhoods are filled with people with same types of characters and back stories. That is what makes is unique and is to be appreciated.
    • 4/5
      When you're from a small town, as my husband is, you can easily be deceived by the boring, nothingness of living in such a place. But scratch the surface even slightly, and you will soon be overwhelmed by the variety of lives being lead there. Juliet of the title is the name of one such small town on the western edge of a Canadian desert in Saskatchewan. At the heart of this "day in the life of" story is an escaped Arabian horse that one of our young characters finds and rides for the next 100 miles and 24 hours. Along that ride he recounts and encounters the many town folk of Juliet who seemingly live ordinary lives, but who actually are all intertwined in extraordinary ways. Bankers, ranchers, old folk, young overwhelmed mothers....they all play a role in making "Juliet in August" a compelling read.
    • 4/5
      I really enjoyed reading this book. The writing is brilliant, beautiful and quite soothing. Dianne Warren has a way with words that puts you right there in the story. I felt like I grew up in this small town and was just reading about my neighbors. I do have to say that in the beginning I kept waiting for something to happen. Once I realized that there was to be no big "climax" I got into the characters even more. I'm not at all surprised that this book has won awards. I look forward to more from Dianne Warren.
    • 4/5
      This book takes place over one day in a small Saskatchwan town. Although it took me a while to warm up to the characters, I truly enjoyed this book. I found myself getting angry with some of the character's decisions (two women) and feeling empathy and sympathy for other characters. I was truly sad when the book ended. I want to know how the lives of the characters will continue!
    • 4/5
      This was an easy book to read. The characters all had problems and decisions to deal with and by the end of the book most were resolved...I'm not quite sure what one of the characters dreams had to do with anything and to me they didn't seem to have anything to do with the story. The main reason I requested this book was the last line in the description "and somewhere,lost in the sand,was a camel named Antoinette". I just thought that was so funny, a camel named Antoinette...that part of the story was never really answered which was a little disappointing but all in all, not a bad read.
    • 5/5
      This is a very deeply felt novel about a place and its people. Set is a small Canadian town, the people of Juliet have issues. Private situations and their geographical location combine to isolate them.Each character deals with their own set of circumstance, closed off from others, even as they exist within a close community. All in the same proverbial spot, they remain alone and imprisoned.The residents of Juliet are ordinary people. There is a banker, a rancher, middle-aged people struggling with a relationship, an overwhelmed couple with several children, among others. Yet each is burdened with very real circumstances and heartbreaking situations, much like real life.Told beautifully in captivating prose, Dianne Warren has written a memorable and meaningful first novel.
    • 5/5
      Dianne Warren won Canada’s prestigious Governor General’s Award in 2010 for Juliet in August (its title at that time was Cool Water) and has now made her American debut and an impressive debut it is. Juliet, Saskatchewan is a small (pop. 1,011), nondescript town on the edge of the Little Snake sand hills, virtually a desert in Canada. Warren narrates her story through the overlapping lives of several of its residents, each struggling with life in different ways, during a twenty-four hour period.Twenty six year old Lee Torgoson is not sure he is capable of carrying on with the successful management of the ranch his adoptive parents willed to him. Orval Birch, the bank manager, is overwhelmed with the responsibility his financial decisions wreak in the lives of his debt-laden customers, as well as the upcoming shotgun wedding of his daughter and the demands of his hard to please wife. Willard Shoenfeld and his sister-in-law run the local drive-in movie, while struggling with their feelings for each other. Hank Krass suspects that his wife, who runs the local café, believes that he is being unfaithful, once more. And Blaine Dolson is deep in debt, working a second job to make ends meet for his six children, and trying to get wife Vicki to take more responsibility in running the household efficiently. But Vicki, who seems to be oblivious to the desperation that her husband feels over their dire financial condition, continues to look on the bright side of things:”Vicki Dolson always says of herself that she is not really capable of understanding great unhappiness. On the worst of days, she sees, or at least tries to see, the best. With the exception of something having to do with the kids,…she can’t think of anything that would make her mope for longer than an hour or two. It’s the way she was raised. So it’s hard for her to understand Blaine and the dark lens through which he sees the world these days…He’d first sold off his herd of Charolais-Hereford cross cattle, and then the bank has insisted on the dispersal of his machinery, and then the sale of all his land but the home quarter.”The brilliance shines through as Warren weaves these disparate stories together to form the tapestry that is the town of Juliet. Her spare, poetic prose is perfect for revealing the innermost feelings of these complex characters. At some point I realized how much I cared for these people, how much I wanted them to solve their separate and diffuse challenges. Very highly recommended.
    • 5/5
      A sparse and beautifully written slice of life in the small town of Juliet, Saskatchewan.Everyday overlapping and intertwining stories of people quietly living their lives. We get to know the people of Juliet first through a bored horse who escapes his trailer and arrives at a farm where the new owner has been contemplating the farm left to him by his adoptive parents now deceased wondering what to do with his life. Seeing the beautiful Arab horse appear in the moonlight he hops on and takes a 100 mile one day ride visiting the people of Juliet along the way and coming to a decision in his own life.We meet a bank manager, a shy older couple, a crazy mother of six, a woman looking to reconnect with her daughter and grandchildren and Antoinette the lost camel….and speaking of Antoinette, my one complaint about the book was not enough of her! I loved this book, I love the slow pace the everyday ordinary people living their lives. A beautifully written book that will stay with me for some time
    • 4/5
      Juliet, Saskatchewan is one of those small towns where "nothing ever happens." But, like other small towns, scratch the surface, and you find a hotbed of activity. Dianne Warren tells the story of one day in the life of this town, and in that one day, we learn the history of the featured inhabitants. There is Lee Torgeson, a young farmer living alone, wondering about his origins; Norval Birch, the banker, feeling guilty for doing the things his job requires, and his wife Lila, planning the perfect wedding for their pregnant and ungrateful daughter; Willard Schoenfeld, owner of the drive-in theater, sharing a home with his late brother's wife Marian, and a host of other characters, trying to make their way in this small microcosm of the world.The book starts slowly, and the beginning stories are so quick and the transitions between them so abrupt, that I had some difficulty keeping the characters straight. About halfway through the book, the characters began to gel, and the stories became more interesting, and by the end of the book I had a strong interest in the characters and what was happening to them. It just took a while to get there. I didn't get a strong sense of place from the book; it could have taken place in any small town in the United States as well as Canada, and if I hadn't read the back of the book telling me it was in Canada, I wouldn't have known it from the reading.Overall, a good read!
    • 5/5
      I was very impressed by this book. The number of characters seemed daunting at first but I soon got to know them all very well. These people were folks you've known in your life and folks you'd like to know. Eccentric, ordinary, fascinating people who were 100% believable. The writing reminded just a bit of Ivan Doig, another author I just love. How these many stories weave together in a sometimes heart-wrenching, sometimes laugh-out-loud funny way is pure genius. I know when I really like a book when I can't resist picking it up many times throughout the day but I know I really love a book when I slow down my reading pace towards the end because I really don't want the book to end. Juliet in August is that kind of book. Highly recommended!
    • 5/5
      Loved this book.I love to read books about small towns and all the independent but interconnected stories. The characters in this book feel very real to me. If you grew up in a small town (or still live there) you will know someone just like the town banker and you will recognize the best of what small towns have to offer. The members of the community are all struggling with their own problems and they are aware of the back story on all their neighbors. I appreciate that the author does not portray the characters in stereotypical ways. Juliet isn't full of zany people straight out of Green Acres and the portrait of the town is not a sentimental Mayberry RFD.The book follows every character's story line separately but if the reader pays attention, you will see the main characters from one story playing a bit part in another character's story. I highly recommend this book and will be looking for others by this author.
    • 5/5
      Juliet in August is one of the most understated, beautifully written books I've read in 2012. Dianne Warren has created a book that, with the subtlety and grace of a racing horse, has completely taken over my imagination and whisked me away to a little town in Canada named Juliet.Juliet in August begins with a horse race - a story which is the foundation of the short tales that follow it. In a way, this book is a mixture of a bunch of short stories, strung together in such a pitch-perfect way that they do not begin to mix until I became completely embroiled in the lives of each and every one of the characters. My heart ached for the Dalton's, I explored life with Lee and mourned his adopted parents with him as well. The time I spent reading I felt as if I was visiting newly acquired friends and I loved every single minute.I am pretty sure, even more so as I sit here writing this review, that Dianne Warren is kind of a genius. She packed so much material in short segments, making them seem as if the pages were flying by but time was slowing in the process. And the entire time, I felt as if I was reading a beautifully written, literary western novel and that each person I was connecting to was someone who could easily be linked to a friend in my own life.Juliet in August surprised and delighted me and easily fits in with my top five books of the year. Don't be fooled by its simple cover and name - this book is one of the most complex and interesting you will pick up this year as well, I promise.
    • 3/5
      I received this book as an Advanced Reading Copy from LibraryThing.com. It is an interesting peak into the lives of people living in Juliet, Saskatchewan. The cast of characters includes: a young man left to farm by himself after the death of his adoptive parents; the bank manager whose wife is nagging him about his pregnant teenage daughter’s wedding to the town ne’er-do-well; a family with several children struggling to make ends meet; and a man left living with his brother’s widow and the drive-in theater they run together.We are entertained with wonderful details of these people’s lives. I really enjoyed the book; however I am only giving three stars because the beginning was very hard to follow as it skips stories too fast. By the middle of the book, once you are well acquainted with the characters, it becomes much more interesting.
    • 4/5
      I really enjoyed this book. It had a strange mix of current day and old west that was something new to me. I suppose that there are still rural parts of the country that are much like this town, but it never really occurred to me. I liked the characters and really enjoyed all the different stories of the different towns people. I could have read another hundred or more pages about them!
    • 5/5
      Beautifully written. A wonderful book full of carefully delineated characters. The joy of this book is that the characters are all just ordinary people who are rendered into involving portraits that remind us that no one is really ordinary. Warren's prose is so involving and so evocative the whole reading experience is special. As another reviewer put it, on the one hand I didn't want to put the book down and on the other hand I didn't want it to end. A delightful reading experience from an author to watch.
    • 5/5
      This is a beautifully written series of vignettes focusing on the lives of about a dozen residents of Juliet, Saskatchewan. The characters are finely and deeply drawn, from Lee, whose adoptive parents have died and whose farm he now runs; to Norval, the bank manager who does his job, but with serious misgivings about the people whose homes and lives are threatened by financial problems; to Vicki and Blaine, parents of six children and not particularly adult themselves; to Willard and his sister-in-law Marian, who has stayed on with Willard for the nine years since her husband Ed died, although both she and Willard are too shy to admit that they love each other. The stories begin in the late afternoon of a hot August day, and continue through that night, the following day, and almost until dawn of the next day. There are stories about living and dying, about secrets kept and revealed, about coming of age, about marriage and love, about old age and youthful shenanigans. Always, there is the landscape that is part of all these lives, and the understanding that natural cycles will continue to hum along, no matter what. It is simply one of the best books I have read in ages.
    • 5/5
      This is a exceptional book and I would not be surprised to see it winning some kind of award in the near future. Juliet is a blink as miss town in the prairie desert of Saskatuan. You wouldn't think that so much could be going on in such a podunk little town in the middle of no where, but feelings run deep in Juliet and you are in for a treat when you get to meet some of it's inhabitants. The characters are all flawed in some way - just like in real life - and sweetly loveable despite their shortcomings. The author respects their innocence and even their foolishness. Even the folks we don't get to know so well are clearly drawn and I can still see them in my minds eye. The flow is so gentle and the author treats her characters with such love and care I could barely put it down. Every story weaves together seamlessly and the author brilliantly wraps up the many lose ends towards the end. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Five stars and excellent in every way.
    • 5/5
      Juliet in August, by Dianne Warren, is the U.S. debut of an award-winning work of literary fiction. First published in Canada in 2010 under the title Cool Water, this work won the prestigious Canadian Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction. It is more a collection of linked stories than a traditional novel. Set in the present day, the work takes us through one 24-hour period in the everyday lives of a handful of characters and families living in the fictional town of Juliet, near the Great Sandhills of Canada’s western prairie. Juliet, population 1,011, is an unremarkable town. This is home to small time ranchers, farmers, and horsemen. But under the skillful literary craftsmanship of Dianne Warren, we find it populated by remarkable characters with compelling interior lives. It is these characters, with their intricate multifaceted three-dimensional lives that make this work unique and worthy of literary attention. As the hours play out over the course of a single day, each chapter is devoted to a specific character or family. This repeats until the day is done and the book is concluded. It is a simple straightforward structure…but somehow it never becomes tiresome. It is a book rife with eloquent unornamented moment-by-moment details. It has an exquisite and unforgettable sense of place! But the jewel at the core of this work is bearing constant witness to the interior lives of its characters. The characters in these differing families casually interact. This gives the work its cohesion. But these everyday interactions do not drive any kind of linear plot forward as it would in a traditional novel. This is a small town; everybody knows one another and everyone else’s business. What interactions exist among characters are more the result of everyday life unfolding naturallyTo read this work is to live life within these characters and, for a brief time, to let them become part of us. If there is one major storytelling arc over the entire work it is this: over this one 24-hour period, each character and family deals with a crisis—some are major crises, others are rather small in the whole scheme of life—but each takes the reader one step further along the path toward understanding what it means to be human. Juliet in August is a subtle book of enormous emotional power and impact. It is nothing more than everyday life in all its baffling and magnificent richness. To read it is to take a journey into the heart of the human condition.