Depressing, bleak, sorrowful.
I don't know why I even picked up this book - oh yeah, it was .50 at a yard sale - it wasn't even worth that!

This novel is set in and around the last remaining dairy farm in a rapidly suburbanizing Wisconsin county. Being a diary farmer is the fulfillment of the dream for Howard Goodheart, a dream wholeheartedly shared by his wife Alice. They enjoy a lifestyle that harkens back to a simpler time, as well as the bond of friendship with one of the nearby families who live in a new suburb that abuts their farm acreage. The two women are best friends, the kind who can breeze into each other's kitchen with a yoo-hoo instead of a knock. Their ordered and pleasant lives are abruptly changed when an accidental drowning occurs in the Goodheart's farm pond. The repercussions are immediate and devastating for both families and for the community. At the same time, one of the main characters is falsely accused of a crime unrelated to the drowning, and from this false accusation, their lives further unravel.

This novel (as has become somewhat a formula in contemporary fiction) is told alternately from the viewpoints of several of the protagonists. The reader must readjust to the various vantage points. Thankfully, Hamilton limits the narrative shifts to large sections of the book, rather than an every other chapter (a frequently disconcerting style popularized by other authors and book editors). It is fair to observe Hamilton's voice is more effective when writing from the female point of view than from the male.

One of the most ominous characters, albeit in a small supporting role, is the gossip, Mrs. Glevitch. "What Mrs. Glevitch thought she knew was as potent as truth, and pretty soon would become truth... she would take the bits of information and dress them up with her distinctive brand of poetry." (page 62). We all know people like her, the deceitful, manipulative, rude, and malicious people whose unchecked behavior we must occasionally interact with, for whom passing on a daily dose of malevolent falsehood is like mother' s milk. Any novelist who sheds the spotlight of truth on such spitefulness gets a big thumbs up from me.

Couldn't hardly put this one down. It isn't a happy story, but the writing was fantastic and the story really makes you think how quickly your life can change and how hard it is to recover when bad things happen to good people.

This was a beautifully written novel about how our minds can often trip us up. A tragic accident has caused a young woman to blame herself for the death of a little girl; and a domino effect is triggered. Shortly, the entire community is blaming her not only for the child's death but for atrocities far worse than her supposed negligence.

I'm not 100% sure "enjoyed" is the right word for how I experienced this book. It was hard to put down, and I was emotionally involved with the characters, but along with enjoying the story and the character development I found it frightening. It's so easy to find yourself out in the cold, accused of something you didn't do, or at least finding that your life is completely altered by an event that only took seconds to happen. A bit haunting. I liked seeing the story from both Alice's and Howard's viewpoints.

This books appears to have quite a bit going on, but the reading is a little slow going.

"A Map of the World" is a novel about a city family who now lives on a farm in a small town. The "heroine" of the novel, the mother, is present when an accidental death occurs for which few forgive her. She is then falsely accused by the small-town folks for unspeakable crimes and jailed.

The plot is interesting, but as I said, the reading is slow going. The characters either develop very slowly, or their depth is so shallow that I didn't realize they were already developed. With so much going on and so much plot, it is hard to imagine not caring about how it turns out.

I enjoyed "Book of Ruth" much, much more.

Ms. Hamilton has done a nice job of showing what happens when life takes a perfectly nice family and tosses their romantic farm life right into a blender. People change dramatically under hideous circumstances and terrible pressures. The characters are well written and the emotions are very real.

I had read Jane Hamilton's first book, The Book of Ruth, and loved it so much I thought I needed to read this book which got great reviews! I honesly couldn't put this book down. It's amazing that one "average" person's life can be turned upside down by one accident. I thought Howard was going to tell Alice about Theresa at the very end because he seemed to be not acting himself. I was kinda surprised that didn't happen but other then that I loved it and recommend it.

This fits in the "can't put it down" category. Fast and fun and compelling with a million gems. She's a great writer. I identified with much in it as well, such as, "I had wittingly hid from the terrors of the world in the bosom of our farm." And on the subject of her kids watching TV, "they sat two inches from the television, farther and farther from Dickens and Shakespeare as the minutes pressed on."

This fits in the "can't put it down" category. Fast and fun and compelling with a million gems. She's a great writer. I identified with much in it as well, such as, "I had wittingly hid from the terrors of the world in the bosom of our farm." And on the subject of her kids watching TV, "they sat two inches from the television, farther and farther from Dickens and Shakespeare as the minutes pressed on."

This was my first Jane Hamilton book. I have to say I am hooked. Not only is this a great story but the characters came to life in my imagination as I turned the pages. I was sometimes angry at the main character for not being assertive enough when the "life changing incident" occurs but I got over it and was in her corner as the story unfolded. Highly recommend!!!

This was my first Jane Hamilton book. I have to say I am hooked. Not only is this a great story but the characters came to life in my imagination as I turned the pages. I was sometimes angry at the main character for not being assertive enough when the "life changing incident" occurs but I got over it and was in her corner as the story unfolded. Highly recommend!!!

Howard, Alice and their two children move to the country to pursue Howard's dream of becoming a diary farmer. All of us have dreams, but if we are smart, we make sure we have the skills to go with them before we uproot our families. It would be foolish to think you could be another Donald Trump if you couldn't even make a profit on a front-yard lemonade stand. Howard does not succeed and times are tough.

Alice's downhill spiral starts with the death of her neighbour's child who drowns while in her care. As a school nurse, Alice tries to hold the family and financial situation together when another blow strikes. Alice is charged with sexual harassment and ends up in jail. The characters in this book were wishy-washy at best, and the book is definitely not one of Hamilton's best. As a reader, I got the feeling she did not put the entire story down on paper and then read it through. It was as if she made the story up as she went along, then quickly zapped it off to the publisher without thoroughly planning a plot. The story started off well but somewhere among the pages, it simply fell flat.

Howard, Alice and their two children move to the country to pursue Howard's dream of becoming a diary farmer. All of us have dreams, but if we are smart, we make sure we have the skills to go with them before we uproot our families. It would be foolish to think you could be another Donald Trump if you couldn't even make a profit on a front-yard lemonade stand. Howard does not succeed and times are tough.

Alice's downhill spiral starts with the death of her neighbour's child who drowns while in her care. As a school nurse, Alice tries to hold the family and financial situation together when another blow strikes. Alice is charged with sexual harassment and ends up in jail. The characters in this book were wishy-washy at best, and the book is definitely not one of Hamilton's best. As a reader, I got the feeling she did not put the entire story down on paper and then read it through. It was as if she made the story up as she went along, then quickly zapped it off to the publisher without thoroughly planning a plot. The story started off well but somewhere among the pages, it simply fell flat.

I recently picked up a used copy of this book, and from reading the first sentence, couldn't put it down. "Slow" or "hard to pick up" is definitely not how I would describe this book. It is intense and beautifully written, with complex characters and an honesty and rawness not often seen. I loved this book and am still haunted by it.

this story by jane hamilton can be such a reality its almost scary. i remember watching oprah one day and this book was the topic for discussion, mind you this was quite a while back so the memory might be a bit vague. i was so enthralled with this story they were talking about that i had to get it. since then, ive tried to faithfully watch the oprah bookclub episodes until i just didnt have time altogether. and getting onto amazon tonight seeing the oprahs bookclub ad i had to search through here.
a map of the world happens to be one of the many books i own from the bookclub, i dare not read it too much because it tends to give me chills sometimes knowing i have younger children. your mind starts to wonder on the what if's after you have children and that i believe is what makes this book so real it can scare you.
needless to say, they do have a threatrical version of this story which is also called a map of the world and i own that as well and it stars segourney weaver (im almost positive). if youve read the book and liked it or felt a need to relate to it the movie follows the book pretty well. and if you didnt like the book then i dont reccommend watching the movie, it follows the book pretty well. lol.
another good book i would also reccommend that is also part of the bookclub would be THE PILOT'S WIFE by anita shreve. that book as well was made into a movie. not along the same story line as MAP but also a very good read.

This reads like the story of Job - Alice's troubles are piled on in a despairing heap. There is so much blackness in this novel. And not a hopeful ending either. Alice's body, spirit, and life, have simply been shattered and so has Howard's and their daughter's. What was the point of this exercise in helplessness? I actually had to look at the ending to see if I could keep reading all this depressing stuff. Perhaps Hamilton needed to exorcise some demons, but I gather her previous book was of much the same ilk. Not one paragraph of lightness or humor anywhere. Just many people's lives disrupted and changed forever - and not to any good. Children dead, at risk, mean people, people locked in an absolute inability to communicate their feelings, just bunches of horribleness. And no way to escape, no better choices. Just life's bitterness. I cannot help but compare this novel to another in the same vein, "The Dollmaker", by Harriet Arnow, which was so fine.

Jane Hamilton has held up a mirror to our culture, but the book should come with a warning: you may not like what you see.

That said, I enjoyed this book tremendously. It is phenomenal -- insightful in its characterizations, poetic in its descriptions, and suspenseful in its plotline. I was intrigued to discover that a substantial number of people didn't like the book, so I read their reviews.

Many reviewers complained that they didn't like the main character, Alice. If so, they're not alone. Virtually the entire town of Prairie Center (excluding Theresa Collins) did not like Alice. She was like a traitor in their midst. She did not believe in using television as her children's babysitter, although circumstances, including her own parenting mistakes, sometimes reluctantly forced her. She avoided the packaged American Dream -- a new house in a new subdivision -- preferring instead the homey character of a run-down farmhouse. She took pains to nourish her children on garden-grown vegetables, homemade butter and fresh-baked bread, avoiding the pre-packaged supermarket fare as much as possible. She had reservations about the medicating of children that she, as a school nurse, took part in. Perhaps worst of all (as noted by various negative reviewers), she was ambivalent about one of society's most sacred cows, the institution of motherhood.

Any careful or even casual reader could see that Alice loved her children tenderly and deeply. Her entire life was a monument to this love. She made butter and grew vegetables and baked bread for them. She entertained them with stories and folk dances so they would not spend their time, zombie-like, in front of the television. She wanted a meaningful life for them, and she exhausted herself to keep them happy and healthy She took on a part time job she hated to buy them what the farm could not provide. Even as these choices and attitudes made her an object of suspicion among the other mothers and townsfolk who ought to have welcomed her, she continued to strive for the lifestyle she believed was best for her children.

Within this milieu of constant sacrifice for the sake of the children lies the foundation of her ambivalence. Day in, day out she worked to make her ideals and dreams a reality, swimming upstream against the currents of society she did not like: relentless suburban sprawl and mind-numbing, consumer-driven "progress". She was trying to avoid the unavoidable, and the hard work and harder choices all took their toll. She was exhausted, physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually, from the ordinary grind of her own extraordinary expectations and her inability to meet them. Faced with an uphill, never-ending and ultimately unwinnable struggle in the name of motherhood, who would not be somewhat ambivalent?

When tragedy struck, Alice had no energy reserves to draw on. She simply collapsed, unable to fight any longer. The townspeople were eager to blame her, so eager that they abandonned all rational thought. In this way the book echoed a theme from Shirley Jackson's The Lottery: the superstitious willingness of a group to sacrifice one of its members for the supposed collective "good". Imprisonment and trial for Alice were the equivalent of The Lottery's stoning in the town square - a public sacrifice that would expiate the sins of the community.

Although Alice finds a lawyer who reveals the falseness of the allegations against her, and although the legal drama that unfolds is riveting, the book never devolves into a courtroom thriller with clearcut victims and heroes. As the book makes clear, Alice's lawyer simply turns the bloodlust of the community against Alice's accusers, one of whom is just a child. That bitter perspective, like the rest of the book, is both eye-opening and unsettling.

Other reviewers have complained that the book was contrived or unrealistic. I suspect those reviewers are partially right: what happened to Alice could never happen -- to them. If you follow society's norms, you are pretty much guarranteed the benefit of the doubt. If you live in a neat, new subdivision with your SUVs and your 2.5 kids medicated by ritalin, TV and processed supermarket food, none of this will happen to you. If tragedy strikes, everyone will understand that bad things happen to good people. But just try living your life a little differently, maybe by worshipping a different God or no God at all, maybe even just letting that lawn in your neat, new subdivision get a little overgrown for the benefit of the wild creatures that used to live there, and just watch what happens. Just watch the gossip and the sideways glances and the suspicion kick in. Just as Alice noticed that the ladies at the bank were all suddenly busy counting change whenever her turn in line came up, that nurturing community you live in has countless little ways of letting outsiders know when they don't fit in. And if tragedy should strike, God forbid, there is no benefit of the doubt for them. Instead it will be "I always knew ..." and "we always suspected . . ." and "just as I thought . .."

Many negative reviewers complain that the book is depressing. Depressing compared to what? Gone With the Wind? Hamlet? A Stone for Danny Fisher? The Sound and the Fury? I can't think of an adult work of fiction that is not dominated or driven by tragedy and human weakness. So yes, tragedies strike the Goodwin household. But the family perseveres, the marriage survives, the false allegations are brought to light, the children come through relatively unscathed, friendships are mended, if not resumed, and Alice achieves a certain philosophical insight that contains the seedlings of serenity.

One negative reviewer compared the book to Sinclair Lewis' Babbit. With all due respect, A Map of the World is so completely unlike Babbit in style, structure, characters, plotline, texture and narration that I am mystified by the comparison. There is some superficial similarity of theme, just as there is some slight thematic interesection between, say, Oedipus Rex and Star Wars, but the similarlity ends quite quickly. I would agree with another reviewer who compared the book to The Crucible. A Map of the World re-works the themes of The Crucible, but with a thoroughly contemporary feel.

A large number of negative reviewers seem compelled to blame Oprah for their reading choices. They remind me of the Prairie Center townsfolk looking to make Alice a scapegoat. These reviewers went through a negative experience, they seem to say, and and someone, somewhere must be to blame. But as the book teaches, accidents happen, adversity occurs, and there is not necessarily a liable culprit.

A few negative reviewers express their displeasure by saying that they wanted Alice to be found guilty. They ascribe all sorts of personal flaws to her -- she was whiney or holier-than-thou or ungrateful or simply unsympathetic as a literary character. Without denying any of that, I'll simply point out that none of it is jail-worthy, unless of course you are a Prairie Center citizen hell-bent on finding a public scapegoat to punish, regardless of actual innocence or guilt. And no one would ever do that, would they? Such an unrealistic book, isn't it? Hmmmmmn.

At the risk of casting aspersions, I will pose the question that perhaps some people don't like the book because they identify not with Alice or Howard or Theresa Collins, but with the narrow-minded citizens of Prairie Center, cocooned in their subdivisions with supermarket food and television, unable to bear the idea that others are questioning this lifestyle and deliberately choosing to live differently. I applaud Jane Hamilotn for writing this book, and I applaud Oprah for giving it well-deserved publicity. I still believe in the transformative power of literature, even though some readers in Oprah's audience and the general public were unable or unwilling to see their reflections in this particular mirror.

Basic plot sketch: Alice (a school nurse) lives on a dairy farm in Prarie Center with her husband and two children. They bought their farm just as local farmers were selling out, and, struggling constantly to "get by," they've always felt like outsiders in their small town. Alice has one true friend in Prarie Center - Theresa. One day, when a stressed-out Alice happens to be babysitting Theresa's children, Theresa's youngest child (Lizzie) drowns in the pond on Alice's farm. Alice feels responsible, and the town seems to judge her.

Shortly thereafter, Alice is accused of child molestation by one of the boys at her school. She is quickly tried in the court of public opinion and found lacking. The actual legal storm that ensues, however, changes her life and the lives of her family.

Despite all of her troubles, I often found it difficult to feel sympathy for Alice. For one thing, she has a volatile relationship with her own children. Her eldest daughter is defiant, and Alice doesn't really know what to do with her. Secondly, Alice is a bit scatterbrained. Although she certainly didn't harm anyone on purpose, her failure to actually watch after Theresa's children did lead to Lizzie's death. Thirdly, she seems very weak. After Lizzie's funeral, Alice couldn't pull herself together. She couldn't get out of bed. She seemed to have no regard for the well-being of her husband or her children.

Alice's husband was hard to understand at times, too. He uproots his family to move out onto an unprofitable dairy farm. Then, he of course spends most of his time working on the farm. He neglects his relationship with his wife and his children. Alice has to work as a school nurse to support the family, because of course the farm isn't turning much of a profit. Then, when Alice is in jail, he canoodles with her best friend! He spends time over at Theresa's house, enjoying the food she cooks and the way she makes him feel.

I don't know. It just seemed, at times, that I couldn't relate to the characters at all. The ending felt flat, and I didn't have much sympathy for any of the characters except Theresa. She really got screwed.

Also, I didn't read this book quickly. Rather than a "can't put it down," it was a "hard to pick it up."

This book showed me how an average person can fall quickly, by making one or two bad decisions in their life. It had a snowball effect, and was written beautifully. I love Jane Hamilton's writing. Do not see the movie based on this book it is dull and the characters are very one dimensional in the movie. The book however is superb and has many gotcha moments when you least expect them. Jane Hamilton seduces you into beliving all is well with the world until she pounces on you and tears your heart right out of your chest. Thought provoking book on the human condition.

This book was good up until Alice got out! It was built up for something better and then bombed! I was hoping that Howard would get on with his life and steer clear of Alice. She bothered me a great deal. Her character didn't seem to be fit to be around kids if she is that spacy. I picked up this book because I loved The Book of Ruth but this one disappointed me!

This book was amazing. I read it as a school project and i never realized how much a book could effect me. Jane Hamilton is a very talented writer and A Map of the World appeals to so many people. I really enjoyed all the characters and how they grew in this book. For my class we have to write a essay on the book and all the key points. I feel so lucky to have stumbled on this book! I reccomend it for anyone!

I find it very difficult to get through half of this book. I have put it down and picked it up more times than I care to mention. It is a waste of time. Awful book...

The lawsuits against day care providers based on the testimony of children have subsided, but this book does not seem in the least dated as a result. Beside being the defendant, Alice is one of a number of wonderfully drawn characters--an Ann Arbor, back to nature, '60's woman with all the sensibilities and naivite that such would imply. Her tragedy could be ours and yet, along the way, she finds a messy kind of redemption which seems very real and which sustains at least this reader's faith in the human condition.

I use this as the title for my review because that is the very problem I had with the book. I finished it several weeks ago, and I after I finished, I waited to feel that wistful ache I often feel after I've just completed a fantastic novel. But it never came.

The first half /two thirds is like watching a car accident that you can't turn your eyes from. The story is tragic but unlike "The House of Sand and Fog" by Dubus, I didn't think that there was as much foreboding and a sense of the tragedy to come. So I had a problem with where the author leads us after the first half. Frankly, it became a little dull, but perked up at the end as best as a novel of this subject matter could.

Hamilton nails the nature of love on the head; complex married love. Additionally, she uses intelligent and strange analogies for big concepts like love and death, which most authors fail to do, so I loved her writing style.

This book was not one of my favorites. It was slow, and sometimes painful, to read. The characters, though, were beautfilly done, with both depth and vision, as well as the background. If you can push aside the difficult writing style, then try this book. Otherwise, skip it.