Signs and Wonders: A Harmony Novel - Hardcover

Gulley, Philip

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060006331 ISBN 13: 9780060006334

Publisher: HarperOne, 2003

Synopsis

It's another bustling year in the lives of this quirky Quaker community. Dale Hinshaw is back and floating another of his crackpot ministry schemes-this time, quite literally, with his Salvation Balloons project. Pastor Sam Gardner's wife, Barbara, the 1977 Tenderloin Queen, wins a trip to the Caribbean and thinks she might just go without her workaholic husband. Deena Morrison struggles with being single and alone, while the Friendly Women's Committee strategizes on how they can "help" her. Jimmy Muldock has a secret only his mother knows, though the ever-curious Furnace Committee is bent on discovering it.

Throughout it all, three things are certain: the Friendly Women's Circle will make more noodles, Dale Hinshaw will push Sam Gardner to the end of his pastoral rope, and the good in human nature will just nudge out the bad.

Filled with master storyteller Philip Gulley's trademark humor and depth of insight, this wise, joyous novel will delight and satisfy both those who know and love Harmony and those who are just discovering it.

About this title

About the Author

Philip Gulley is a Quaker minister, writer, husband, and father. He is the bestselling author of Front Porch Tales, the acclaimed Harmony series, and is coauthor of If Grace Is True and If God Is Love. Gulley lives with his wife and two sons in Indiana, and is a frequent speaker at churches, colleges, and retreat centers across the country.

From Publishers Weekly

In his third full-length Harmony novel, Gulley delivers another series of charming vignettes about Quaker pastor Sam Gardner and his eccentric parishioners. In fact, Gulley's underlying thesis seems to be that to live in a small Midwestern town is to be eccentric, as evidenced by such bizarre schemes as Harvey Muldock's attempt to store his beloved convertible in his garage attic, only to have it crash down on top of his wife's car. At its best, Gulley's work is comparable to Gail Godwin's fiction, Garrison Keillor's storytelling and Christopher Guest's filmmaking. When, for example, an obnoxiously pietistic member of the church releases "salvation balloons" in an attempt to save all those Democrats in Chicago, he gets an angry call from a zookeeper in Pittsburgh who reports that the first recipient of one of his balloons was a rare trumpeter swan, who choked on the balloon and died. These moments of sharp wit are interwoven with gentler, more homespun humor in a league with Jan Karon's Mitford series, exemplified in a plot revolving around the only single, attractive, well-educated woman in town and her vain attempts to find love. Sometimes Gulley indulges in hyperbole that reflects just a bit of condescension toward his smalltown characters; for example, he describes Italian night at the local cafe as "Chef Boyardee spaghetti from a can and Bea Majors on the organ." His caricatures of conservative Christians occasionally seem a bit mean-spirited as well. Still, readers who seek pleasant, witty and occasionally poignant fiction will delight in this book.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: HarperOne
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0060006331
• ISBN 13: 9780060006334
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 224