The Small Rain: A Novel

Katherine Forrester Vigneras Series, Book 1

By: Madeleine L'Engle

Narrated by: Kathleen Gati

“An unusual and beautiful book,” the first novel by the bestselling author of A Wrinkle in Time explores the life of a young artist (Los Angeles Times).

At only ten years old, Katherine Forrester has already experienced her fair share of upheaval. It has been three years since she last saw her mother, a concert pianist whose career was cut short by a terrible accident. After a brief reunion, tragedy strikes once more, forcing Katherine from the familiarity of New York City to a foreign Swiss boarding school.

Far from home, she struggles with the challenges of growing up. Stifled by her daily routine and the pettiness of her classmates, Katherine’s piano lessons with a gifted young teacher provide an anchor in the storm. After graduation, she follows in her mother’s footsteps, pursuing a career as a pianist in Greenwich Village. There, she must learn to reconcile her blossoming relationship with her fiancé with the one consistent and dominant force in her life: music.

Inspired by the author’s time living among artists, The Small Rain follows Katherine’s journey from a distraught girl to an exuberant and talented woman with the breadth and poignancy that defines Madeleine L’Engle’s signature style.

©1972 Crosswicks, Ltd. Introduction ©1984 by Crosswicks, Ltd. (P)2018 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

disappointing

Did not finish. The characters seemed flat I am not sure if it the writing or more likely the narration. The voice reading especially the children's parts was distracting and at times shrill.

cliffhanger

I didn't like how it just ended on the subject of Sarah felt like a cliffhanger because Catherine and Sarah would make the perfect couple

Enjoyed the story and performance

I was amazed to learn that this is one of her earliest works. It's very well written and kept my interest. My only criticism is the ending. It feels unfinished like an unresolved chord. You know how you want things to turn out, but you're not given the satisfaction of knowing.

Hard to rate this as an LGBTQIA+ Person

SPOILERS AHEAD, but I'll warn again before the big ones. It was really cool to see where Madeline L'Engle's writing started. And a lot of the book was very beautiful. The narration was beautiful a well. And I enjoyed many characters and very much enjoyed being provided such a stark honest window into her 1930s world.

But also, ugh, I had to keep reminding myself it was written in the early 1940s. And set in the 1930s. As a queer person this was both an interesting and distasteful read. ***BIG SPOILERS*** Interesting because so much of her 1930s remind me of the 1990s, going to the gay bar, discussion of sexual histories, hanging out with bohemians (similar scene we just didn't call them that), goth kids with skull rings, STD testing, getting hit on by adult men, me-too issues, etc. It felt SO CONTEMPORARY (to my youth in the 1990s anyway) in parts. Even the homophobia and yes there is homophobia. I experienced those EXACT same manifeststions of homophobia in the 1990s. ***AND EVEN MORE SPECIFIC SPOILERS*** And not just the characters you are supposed to dislike. And lesbian panic of course at the single sex girls school, although it was worse at hers.

Having cut my teeth on Madeline L'Engle's House Like a Lotus ***SPOILERS FOR HOUSE LIKE A LOTUS/TRIGGER WARNING*** I had some experience with her writing about adults pursuing physical relationships with underage teens. I read that book when I was in the 8th grade and I think it set me up to normalize and romanticize that as a teenager in a way that led to some unfortunate contact I had a year or two later with someone who is in prison now for hurting a lot of children. Ugh. The adult me, the years later me, faults her for that since that book was YA marketed to young people. It wasn't her fault necessarily, but it did contribute to how I viewed romantic interest from adults and what that led to, which ended up being very damaging for me in ways that will never be resolveable.

***BACK TO SPOILERS FOR THIS BOOK*** I don't really like her pre-me-too romanticization of that in that book or this one. It's creepy. Probably honest to who she was then and to the character's perspective, the character feels what she feels and this book is for adults, I think it's good art, it is just I'm seeing all the love-interest men as creepy men attracted to children and I can't tell if that's what Madeline L'Engle WANTS me to feel, or if those men are men she sees the reader finding as hot as the main character does. I'm hoping for more illumination in the sequel.

I also don't enjoy her creepy gay characters. "This was written in the early 1940s" I had to keep repeating over and over. The main character in this was not one of my people. The people who hurt her were. ***EXTREMELY SPECIFIC SPOILERS** I think this book COULD be a good cautionary tale about why being homophobic could blow up in your face (IF there are homophobic readers astute enough to catch it of course). I'm not sure if it was the author's intention or not, but to me Sarah & Pete take her to the gay bar to see if she's bi-friendly. It was a test to see if she's safe and can accept who they really are and she fails miserably, recoiling at the whole thing. So of course they end up sleeping together and dumping her. She rejected who they were fundamentally. They covered and made it all pretty for her after because it was the 1930s, but that's where things went wrong. She got what she deserved. She wasted them by not approaching the windows they gave her into themselves with openness and curiosity.

Throughout the book I didn't want for the character what she wanted herself. She kept wanting creepy guys, and I wanted her free of that. And I was sad that what seemed like the start of a steamy lesbian subplot wasn't. I haven't read the sequel yet. That was written much later. In the 1980s I think. I'd like to know (secretly hoping) if L'Engle was on the same page as me about the characters all along and we just hadn't gotten there yet, but I suspect I will be let down, and that she wasn't as lgbtqia+ friendly as I wanted to believe she was after reading House Like a Lotus in 8th grade (misreading really because that book isn't a super great portrayal of lesbians at all). We'll see. I do hope she doesn't end up with the creepy piano teacher. But it was worth the read to see where she came from and get more context on her later work. Plus what a cool portrait on the 1930s, so much more like now than I expected.

Also, the writng was beautiful and it felt good/cathartic to visit with the story of someone else who also felt searingly painful loneliness as a teen. I enjoyed this window into her world. I am glad I read it.