Three Junes: A novel | 
| Author: Julia Glass
Publisher: Knopf Group E-Books
Category: EBooks
List Price: $9.95
Buy New: $7.96
You Save: $1.99 (20%)
Rating:  227 reviews
Format: Kindle Book
Media: Kindle Edition
Edition: 1st
Pages: 368
Number Of Items: 1
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
ASIN: B000FBFMDO
Publication Date: September 3, 2002
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Three Junes is a vividly textured symphonic novel set on both sides of the Atlantic during three fateful summers in the lives of a Scottish family. In June of 1989, Paul McLeod, the recently widowed patriarch, becomes infatuated with a young American artist while traveling through Greece and is compelled to relive the secret
sorrows of his marriage. Six years later, Paul’s death reunites his sons at Tealing, their idyllic childhood home, where Fenno, the eldest, faces a choice that puts him at the center of his family’s future. A lovable, slightly repressed gay man, Fenno leads the life of an aloof expatriate in the West Village, running a shop filled with books and birdwatching gear. He believes himself safe from all emotional entanglements—until a worldly neighbor presents him with an extraordinary gift and a seductive photographer makes him an unwitting subject. Each man draws Fenno into territories of the heart he has never braved before, leading him toward an almost unbearable loss that will reveal to him the nature of love.
Love in its limitless forms—between husband and wife, between lovers, between people and animals, between parents and children—is the force that moves these characters’ lives, which collide again, in yet another June, over a Long Island dinner table. This time it is Fenno who meets and captivates Fern, the same woman who captivated his father in Greece ten years before. Now pregnant with a son of her own, Fern, like Fenno and Paul before him, must make peace with her past to embrace her future. Elegantly detailed yet full of emotional suspense, often as comic as it is sad, Three Junes is a glorious triptych about how we learn to live, and live fully, beyond incurable grief and betrayals of the heart—how family ties, both those we’re born into and those we make, can offer us redemption and joy.
From the Hardcover edition.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 222 more reviews...
 As close to real life as fiction ever gets. June 22, 2008
Miles D. Moore (Alexandria, VA USA)
Julia Glass' "Three Junes" is less a novel than a set of three loosely connected novellas telling the story of the McLeod family--newspaper publisher Paul; his wife, Maureen, breeder of champion border collies; and their sons--bookstore owner Fenno, veterinarian David, and chef Dennis. You could call it a family saga, except that Glass sternly resists all temptations to give in to the overworked conventions of that genre.
As the title indicates, the novellas tell the stories of various McLeod family members on three separate Junes: 1989, in Greece; 1995, in New York and at the family home in Scotland; and 1999; at the Long Island seashore. All three stories deal strongly with bereavement--dealing not only with the grief of loss, but also with the complicated situations the dead have left behind. Characters outside the family recur from story to story, but not in any Dickensian or O. Henry sort of way--indeed, the characters don't always even realize the connections. Glass is a master of descriptive prose, always finding the right detail to bring a scene to life. She's also a master at creating character, her brainchildren complicated and believably contradictory, never reducible to a few traits. I'm still not certain what I think of most of the characters--which, I believe, is why so many reviewers on this Web site have reacted so strongly against the book. "Three Junes" never tells us what to think of the characters, and never envelops us in the their cuddliness--indeed, they're more often prickly than cuddly. But they're never less than three-dimensional, and in the end they are sympathetic. They're not fantasy people, but more like your next-door neighbors and your colleagues at work. (Two of the most charming characters are Rodgie the border collie and Felicity the parrot--both fully as realized as any of the human characters.)
If you're looking for a story that ties everything up in neat little bows in the end, avoid "Three Junes." But if you want a book as messy, vivid and believable as real life, this is the book for you.
Close to Home June 13, 2008
Joanna L. Hruska (Coeur d' Alene, Idaho United States)
Our book club chose this book on a whim, and I could not have been more pleased with the results. The characters are beautifully crafted, and I am not sure I have ever cared for fictional people more. Having to read this in the weeks following the death of a love one, this book helped in the healing process to no end, as you one easily identify with the family and realise that you are not alone in hurt. The intricate details make the family feel so real and you begin to feel you are one of them.
Simply a Work of Art March 23, 2008
W. Kaplan (Wynnewood, PA United States)
I had the rather strange experience of reading this book AFTER Glass's newest offering ("The Whole World Over"), and so was delighted to see some characters, notably the ultra complicated tortured soul Fenno, again.
Because I knew that Fenno, who is the epitome of a dour Scotsman in Three Junes, had mellowed, I had more patience with him than maybe I would have had. I never really liked him in this book, but was that the point? This brilliant collection of interwoven vignettes had me spellbound throughout. I loved the tapesty of the written word. I loved the visual pictures the words evoked. I loved moving from Greece to Scotland to New York and back again through different sets of time.
In short, I loved everything about this book, and I am so glad I discovered Julia Glass, to to me, if a quintessential writer.
oh how i love this book... February 27, 2008
S. Beck (New York, NY)
I found it impossible to put this novel down (and dreaded its looming conclusion). The writing is so beautiful, the characters are completely unique but real. A novel hasn't made me cry in a long time, but this one did... It petered out a bit in the final chapter, but the overall experience far outweighed the conclusion. In all, a fantastic read.
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