Velma Still Cooks in Leeway: A Novel - Softcover

Wright, Vinita Hampton

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0805421289 ISBN 13: 9780805421286

Publisher: B & H Pub Group, 2000

Synopsis

As the town's chief cook and part-time janitor for Jerusalem Baptist church, Velma Brendle has never done anything more outstanding than putting on a good meal at Velma's Place, the one restaurant in Leeway, Kansas, but she takes good care of her customers, neighbors, and friends. However, in the midst of these two jobs, Velma's husband stops talking, Cousin Albert comes to live with her, and she finds herself dealing with the town's problems. As memories of past troubles plague her, she grows weary from even the tasks she loves the most. Old Sunday School lessons take on new meanings, and new problems illuminate trials Velma thought were long over. In sudden leaps of faith and moments of tragedy, Velma and all those she loves journey toward facing their sins and finding forgiveness.

About this title

About the Author

Vinita Hampton Wright has been a music teacher in Missouri and in Jordan. After receiving her M.A. degree in print and journalism communications, she has served as an editor for both Tyndale House Publishers and Harold Shaw Publishers. She is currently senior book editor at Loyola Press. Vinita and her husband live in Chicago.

Reviews

H"A real story doesn't require a special, make-believe place. Our lives get lived out in the open, with people walking in and out of them as they please." So notes Velma, the smalltown Kansas cook who narrates this extraordinary, character-driven novel. How does a close-knit Christian community react as it gradually suspects that one of its favorite sons is viciously abusing his wife? For a Christian author, Wright (Grace at Bender Springs) pulls no punches; these characters are complex sinners whose dark sides will remind readers of unresolved conflict in their own lives. Each chapter begins with an epigraph from the Book of Ezekiel, setting the tone for the ensuing action, and ends with a soulful recipe from Velma's cafe, where the town's loves and losses are played out. Wright draws her characters masterfully, allowing them to grow and minutely change. A "good old boy" pastor who doubts the veracity of a young wife's delicate pleas for help comes to realize his error when his own daughter has similar troubles in her marriageDbut not before a terrible tragedy engulfs the town. The novel explores the nuts and bolts of forgiveness in a village that looks sleepy from the outside but that actually stages a cosmic drama of divine grace at work in human life. As a bona-fide work of literary fiction, Wright's newest deserves a wide readership both within and outside the Christian market. (Sept.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Wright's Velma Still Cooks in Leeway features stories and recipes from Velma Brendle of Leeway, Kansas, an aging widow who runs the town's only cafe. There's the shy girl date-raped by a popular boy; no one believes the girl except Velma, but, like the pastor and the boy's parents, Velma knows the disaster that will result if the girl's story is allowed to be true. There are the stories of the man who suddenly, inexplicably, leaves his wife and family; the trustworthy mechanic who gossips too much; and the loquacious busybody who falls down a flight of stairs and is reduced to incoherency. Characters crisscross, resulting in a novel composed of small sorrows, celebrating faith as a matter of course, quietly triumphant. Wright is a rarity on the Christian scene, a realist, and her Velma is in every way a worthy successor to her fine debut novel, Grace at Bender Springs [BKL O 1 99]. John Mort
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Edition details

• Publisher: B & H Pub Group
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0805421289
• ISBN 13: 9780805421286
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 295