Through the Ivory Gate: A novel - Softcover

Dove, Rita

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0679742409 ISBN 13: 9780679742401

Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 1993

Synopsis

A debut novel by the 1987 winner of the Pulitzer Prize for poetry. When a woman returns to her Midwestern hometown as an artist-in-residence to teach puppetry to schoolchildren, her homecoming also means dealing with memories of racism, rejected love--and truths about her family. Author readings.

About this title

About the Author

Rita Dove, poet laureate of the United States from 1993 to 1995, was born and raised in Akron, Ohio. She wrote the novel Through the Ivory Gate, as well as a collection of stories, a verse drama, a book of essays, and five books of poetry, among them Thomas and Beulah, which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1987. The recipient of numerous literary fellowships and awards, she is the Commonwealth Professor of English at the University of Virginia and lives near Charlottesville with her husband, Fred Viebahn, and their daughter, Aviva.

From Kirkus Reviews

A Pulitzer Prize-winning poet (1987) occasionally gives her gift free rein in this somewhat mechanically rendered first novel- -about a young artistic black woman and her search for self. Virginia King returns to Akron, her hometown, as an artist-in- the-schools. Her interest in classical cello has become little more than a hobby since the end of her affair with a fellow cellist; her studies of drama and mime led to a dead end because Nixon-era America had no work for a serious black actress; and the experimental puppetry troupe she worked and lived with has gone under. But now, at Washington Elementary School, everything seems at first to go her way: she all but effortlessly captivates the children, as well as a gorgeous man who wears great-smelling cologne and helps heal past disappointment. For drama, there's the revelation of a family secret, the conflict between marriage and career, and an accident to a child. In between, Virginia visits her wise grandmother, delivers essaylike disquisitions on the history and psychology of puppetry, and has serious thoughts about the cello's classical repertoire. In these sections--even the didactic ones--the author seems to care about her subject and her own words. Perhaps adherence to conventional structure and development hindered Dove's vision: the telling of Virginia's personal story often seems driven more by obligation than inspiration. Virginia worth knowing, but she's not alive enough on the page to be of interest for herself instead of just for her situation. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Edition details

• Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
• Publication date: 1993
• ISBN 10: 0679742409
• ISBN 13: 9780679742401
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 288