The Spirit of the Place is a hard book for me to review. While I enjoyed the idea of the story and did enjoy most of the book, I can't say that I loved it nor can I say that it was memorable. Much of the book was wonderfully written and very descriptive but I felt some parts just were missing something. I also felt that the ending was kind of predictable and seemed unfinished to me. I waited so long to receive this book after I won it through Early Reviewers that I wanted to love it but, alas, I did not.

This is an ER book that I was scheduled to receive, which never arrived; hence, I could not write a review. It looks interesting from the posted reviews.

In The Spirit of the Place, Samuel Shem's descriptive prose illustrates the return of Dr. Orville Rose to his hometown following the death of his mother and his experiences following that return.

Other reviewers have provided a good plot summary, so I won't repeat that here. What I will comment on is the nature of the writing: while I liked Shem's earlier works better (particularly Mount Misery), both the humor and character of his writing remains strong. Unfortunately, the plot of The Spirit of the Place isn't as similarly strong, but it's still a pretty good read. It's also a book that I've picked up and put down several times: maybe not strong enough to hold me through the duller parts, but with enough of a hold to keep me coming back to it. ( )

Dr. Orville Rose has been living in EUrope practicing medicine at a European spa and life is pretty good. He likes his work, and he's fallen in love with a beautiful Italian yoga instructor. That's all about to change. "Two Bad things will happen today" she tells him one day as they set off boating on a lake. He scoffs, but soon finds out she was right. The "bad thing" that effects him the most is finding out his mother had died some time ago as he was wandering around Europe. This is the story of his return home, and how he deals with having to stay there for just over a year if he wishes to inherit everything his mother has left him.

So we read the story of how he reacts and deals with what he considers his "punishment" by his mother. The story has both it's comedic and tragic moments, just as life often does. While the story didn't grab my attention and make me want to keep reading straight thru, I did keep going back to it after short diversions to other things to see what would happen next. Settling in to a "small town" type of life after the more "cosmopoltian" style of living in Europe, we watch as Orville fights demons from his past while just wanting to get back to Italy. At the same time he is seeing his boyhood home in ways he had never really seen it before.

We get to watch as both he and those around him react and interact with one another. There are changes for the good and bad, but just who those changes are good or bad for may not necessarily be who you might expect. In their own ways, each character goes thru a change even tho it's Orville whose life we are following most closely.

Being about a doctor and his life, there's some medical jargon and doctoring going on, but none is graphic or over used. Its primary use is to give Orville more chances to interact with and learn about the townspeople. While like all books this one won't be for everyone, if you enjoy reading "life stories" type of books, you should find this enjoyable. ( )

This story of the return of Dr Orville Rose to his small hometown of Columbia, New York after the death of his mother, Selma, is a wonderful blend of tragedy and comedy.

During the year and 13 days that Orvy remains in the town he loathes in order to fulfill the terms of his mother's will and receive his inheritance we meet many a colorful character -- including the deceased Selma, now returned to a youthful beauty, flying about at night and sniping at her son from on high. The characters -- including that of the town of Columbia -- are cleverly drawn and all worth meeting.

Not the most brilliant book I've read this year, but a good solid read and well worth the time. I will recommend to many. ( )

Quite funny but a bit sentimental. Shows really what it must be like to be a GP in a small town. And small town America as depressing as usual. ( )

After reading all the negative reviews, I'm surprised I liked the book as well as I did. Yeah, it was a little predictable, but it was a nice, easy read. It's the type of book I like to read after reading something really intense. The characters are human and likeable (the good ones) and the small town atsmophere feels accurate (made me glad I live in a big city!) It probably won't be a book I read over and over again, but I enjoyed it.

As an Early Reviewer, I appreciated the hand-written note apologizing for the long delay in receiving the book. ( )

The Spirit of the Place makes two books in a row that have reminded me why I should never judge a book by its cover. The cover of this book left me thinking 'meh' but the novel itself knocked my socks off.

Shem's prose is mesmerizing and beautiful. This is a book to be savored. The plot steadily unfolds versus rushing forth. And yet, it held my attention from start to finish.

The most outstanding aspect of this novel, for me, was the emotional depth that Shem conveyed in his characters. Especially in Orville and Miranda, but also in secondary characters such as the old town physician Bill Starbuck, Miranda's sweet six year-old son Cray and Orville's passionate, impulsive pre-teen niece Amy. Even characters who made brief appearances, such as the flighty, ethereal Celestina Polo, and Starbuck's dutiful wife Babette were vivid to the reader through Orville's narration.

Orville was a man full of turmoil. His love life. His career. His relationship with his deceased mother. All his life he ran away instead of staying. Because of the terms of his mother's will, he is forced to stay. In Columbia, that is.

The town of Columbia is a character in and of itself. A town so unbelievably self-destructive that it borders on hilarious. Orville stayed under duress. Thanks to his mother's will, he stood to gain almost a million dollars by staying for at least one year and thirteen months. Could he learn to love, or at least accept his hometown. Would he?

Then there was his relationships with women. I wouldn't say I didn't like Celestina Polo, but I thought she was wrong for Orville. Miranda, on the other hand, I not only adored but completely sympathized with. It was difficult to watch Miranda and Orville's relationship deteriorate. Their fears, their emotions seemed so incredibly real. It was what most of us have felt at one time when we wanted something so badly, but were so afraid we couldn't have it that our fears became a sort of self-fulfilling prophesy.

Finally, there was Orville's relationship with his mother, Selma. Selma cared enough about her son to leave a boxful of letters to be sent to her son at specified times after her death. Yet, the letters were often harsh and critical and full of unforgiveness and grudges held by a mother against her only son.

Orville's struggle to come to terms with Selma, Miranda, and the sad little town of Columbia - and they are all intertwined - is the driving force of this story. There are several interesting subplots artfully woven in, such as the fight to save an historic Columbian hotel, Orville's relationship with the man who tormented and bullied him as a child, and Cray, Miranda's son who falls for Orville in much the same was his mother does: tentative love mixed with self-protective fear.

Shem's fascinating account of Orville's cathartic one year and thirteen days in Columbia is a perfect example of how a return to our hometown can force us to face the past. ( )

Samuel Shem is famous for his 1978 best seller, House of God – a humorous “expose” of life for hospital interns and still a “must read” for many medical students. His latest novel, The Spirit of the Place, is also about the practice of medicine, but this time leaves the hospital for solo practice in the small Hudson River town of Columbia, New York.

Nominally, the hero is Dr. Orville Rose, whose mother’s death brings him back to Columbia from Europe, where he was in the middle of a divorce-triggered mid-life crisis centered on an affair with an Italian yoga instructor. Strong-armed by the terms of his mother’s will, Orville must live in her house and practice medicine in Columbia for a year and 13 days if he is to inherit her fortune.

But the town of Columbia is really the main character. A rocky escarpment flanked by swamps, shouldering an inexplicable (as it was once a freshwater port) whaling theme, Columbia has seen better days. The town and it citizens are now burdened with every problem imaginable, from industrial pollutants and gang violence, to a gonorrhea epidemic and chronic obesity. On top of it all, Columbia has a well-earned reputation for “breakage” – anything the town does goes wrong, including parade floats and city council slide shows.

Orville’s battle with Columbia is the central conflict in the story, but he is in conflict with everyone and everything. He cannot seem to get along with his ex-wife, his Italian lover, his new Columbian girlfriend, his sister, his brother-in-law, his neighbor, himself, or even his dead mother who keeps appearing to him for conversations as well as sending him posthumous letters.

All of this makes for a compelling plot with plenty of interesting side stories and the obligatory cast of colorful locals. Shem gets an A- for conceptualization. But he deserves a C- for execution. Quirks in his writing style prove so distracting that it is hard to get into the flow of the story.

First, there is the jarring dichotomy between the medical storyline and the personal. Shem is at his best when writing about medicine, especially in describing the bone-wearying monotony of injury, violence, illness, and death that fills a 36-hour shift in a small town emergency room. But his hard boiled prose and gallows humor (Orville calls to say he will be late for dinner because everyone is dying, they’re just not doing it fast enough) contrasts jarringly with the fluffy soft New Age drivel in the personal scenes, such as this particularly saccharine passage:

Miranda leaned against the doorjamb. Seeing this man she loved make the move towards fathering, she felt her heart lighten, lift, her whole being lift so it seemed she had to hold on to the door to stay down on the ground. Her face flushed, her eyes teared up, her heart opened like a new tulip.

What is worse – the use of “father” as a verb? Or, “her heart opened like a new tulip”?

Also distracting is Shem’s use of multiple perspectives. The story is told in third person, mostly from Orville’s perspective. But some of the scenes with girlfriend Miranda are written from her perspective. Worse, Shem sometimes switches perspective between the two within the same scene, or even the same conversation.

Finally, Shem’s humor can get tryingly cheeky – proving the rule that it is very hard to write a funny book. Shem always goes for one too many laughs, pushing the joke too far: too many quirky villagers, too many funny business names, too many small town silly juxtapositions. Some jokes, like the ménage à trios involving the flamboyantly gay amateur theater director, a bitter divorcee, and a rent-a-clown are just too cute by half.

Overall, The Spirit of the Place just does not live up to its potential. ( )

http://youarewhatyouread2.blogspot.co... ( )

I'm sorry to say that the hideous cover art is not even the worst part of this book.

When I began the story, I was intrigued. The town of Columbia, with its history of "breakages," seemed an ample metaphor for life as a whole, with its constant ups and downs and series of minor (and less minor) catastrophes. Orville's mother, her deadness and the "expense of spirit" needed to stomach her, is likewise easy for many readers to relate to. Unfortunately, as the story progressed, the characters never really filled out - they all remained two-dimensional stereotypes: the needy girlfriend who gets upset over seemingly nothing; the cruel, harping mother who never leaves him alone, even in death; the money-grubbing new-Ager; the smarmy politician. There is no subtlety to this book. It is heavy-handedness at its worst, and at times I found the pigeon-holing of character types actually offensive.

The last fifty pages were all but unbearable, as the book trudges on to it's unavoidable, and completely predictable, conclusion. This book was free, and I still kind of want my money back. ( )

I really enjoyed this story; the characters were real, believable and interesting. Dr. Orville's coming to terms with the oddities of his mother's will and his blossoming romance with Miranda make for compelling reading. History buffs will enjoy the historical information regarding the town of Columbia, New York, and it is tied in nicely with the many facets of this story. As well, the imagery and storyline when Dr Orville attends the death of a friend is incredible and touching. I highly recommend this book for anyone who is looking for a good read, a quirky premise and characters that could easily be a part of your lives. This one delivers.

The novel, The Spirit of the Place, by Samuel Shem, is a good read for a weekend getaway. The central character, Dr. Orville Rose, is in Italy in 1983 when he receives notice of his mother’s death. Returning to his home town of Columbia, New York, he learns that his mother has put a condition on his inheritance. He must stay in the town, living in his mother’s house, for a year and 13 days. Thus the structure is set for this entertaining and sometimes thought-provoking novel.
As a doctor, Orville has been trained to view his patients with keen perception and objectivity. Even in his off hours, however, he cannot escape from seeing Columbia from this distant and analytical vantage point, and it reinforces his feelings of separateness and longing for a sense connection.
Samuel Shem is the pen name for Dr. Stephen Bergman, who is both a novelist and an M.D. His website is at www.samuelshem.com. His medical training is both a strength and a weakness as an author. The strength is evident during a tender scene when Orville is at the bedside of a dying friend. The weakness comes from the author’s distance from most of the characters. The only one who seems real is Orville, who has many characteristics of the author himself. The other characters are described well, but lack motivation for their behavior. It is as if he observes them, but doesn’t listen to them. Overall, however, the book offers several laughs and challenges readers to consider their own sense of belonging, and that makes it a worthwhile read. ( )

"The Spirit of the Place" is a new novel by Samuel Shem which takes place in the town of Columbia, New York. Dr. Orville Rose returns to his hometown, Columbia, after he receives word his mother has passed away. He plans for his trip home to be temporary, and he leaves behind in Italy his current love, Celestina, with every intention of returning to her. Orville's plans go awry when he finds his mother's will requires him to stay in Columbia for a year and 13 days. During his absence, Celestina dumps him for another man and Orville reluctantly decides to stay. He watches over his mentor's medical practice while his mentor travels, and Orville begins to build new relationships and foster old ones.

I began this book and thought "I like this; this is good". Then, about 2/3rds of the way through, I started to think "ugh, get on with it already". I found the last third of the book to be tiring, drawn out, and forced. The relationship Orville had with Celestina had no chemistry, and that made me ask "why?" The relationship Orville had with Miranda did have chemistry, and that also made me ask "why?" It seemed as though the author was trying to create a conflict where there really was none, and the characters, who were at once endearing, became quite frustrating and intolerable. Mr. Shem does explain throughout the book why Orville had such a strained relationship with his mother, and why he finds Columbia such a horrible town to live in, but there are some details and encounters that Mr. Shem leaves out that the reader is left to assume. I used the third part of the story to practice my speed reading skills and was quite disappointed in how the book finished. ( )

This is the dramatic comedy of a 39-year-old doctor who is called back home when his mother dies and finds himself grappling with love and change back in his childhood town.

The book is well-constructed, with bookends and echoes across sections. Despite the fact that we see things through Orville's eyes, the people we see are not flat caricatures but rather conflicted, loving, angry realistic people. I really felt involved with them and their dilemmas, their hopes to improve their lives and their frustrations with the inertia of the town.

I think it is worth noting that the book takes place just up the Hudson from the works of Washington Irving, who parodied, mythologized, and Americanized us through his short stories. This theme of location carries throughout the book--how does place mold you? And how is the history of a place formed? Along this line, the ambiguity of the title is wonderful: who is the genius loci of the house, the town? Orville's mother appears to him in visions or hallucinations, and yet there are times when politician Henry Schooner, historian Miranda, and even Orvy himself appear as guardian figures. Indeed, perhaps the message of the book is that despite all our human failings, all of us have the spark of a divine protector.

Highly recommended. ( )

The Spirit of the Place is a solid novel about Orville Rose, a divorced doctor who has spent the last several years living as an expatriate in Europe and alternately working as a doctor for charity organizations and doctoring the wealthy at a series of spas. While on a vacation with his Italian girlfriend, Orvy receives a telegram that his mother has died, so he quickly returns to his hometown of Columbia, New York. Once there he learns about his mother's unusual will which leaves him half the estate, the family home and the car, but only if he lives in Columbia for one year and thirteen days -- otherwise everything goes to his sister. After a little indecision, he decides to stay, moves into his childhood home, and begins helping out the town doctor -- who also happens to be his good friend and the childhood mentor that got him interested in medicine.

All seems relatively normal until Orville begins getting letters from his deceased mother, starts seeing her ghost flying around town and talking to him, the horrible bully from his childhood is running for Congress and wants to make friends, and he gets involved with an intriguing young widow who also happens to be the town historian and the mother of a young son.

Shem's characters are deeply drawn and although Orville's story of forgiveness, self-reflection, and growing understanding of his home and family pretty much go where you think they will, the steps along the way and the people in the town are unique, interesting, and well-written. The best bits are the doctoring parts, and since Shem is a doctor himself they have an appealing realism to them. Definitely worth picking up...

[full review here: http://spacebeer.blogspot.com/2008/07...] ( )

The further I got into this book, the more I liked it. I think of the author as a kindler, gentler version of Philip Roth. Shem's protagonist is fighting the psychological effects of a tormenting Jewish mother. He's also he's struggling with his identity and with his relationships with the opposite sex. Yet, unlike Roth, Shem does not devolve into the intrusive, the offensive, or the off-putting downright dirtiness of Roth at any point. His prose is more down-to-earth than Roth's, and without that self-conscious display of brilliance Roth employs, but I feel this contributes more to a sense of warmth in the story.

The protagonist, Orville Rose, is a 39-yr-old doctor who returns to his hometown of Columbia, New York after his mother has died and made Orville's residence in the town (for a year and thirteen days) a condition of his inheritance. Leaving a fling in Italy with the New-Agey Celestina Polo, he comes back and takes over the medical practice of his old mentor, Dr. Bill Starbuck. He renews his relationship with his niece Amy (to whom he has always been close), and begins a new relationship with the local historian, Miranda Braak (who has a six-year-old son, Cray).

Miranda is physically crippled – a victim of polio – but Orville and other residents we meet in Columbia are just as broken in non-visible ways. Their journey towards healing is the journey of this book.

When Orville was six, he made the discovery that he was “part of something else,” something bigger than he. His mother, Selma, put him down: “Orville-doll, there’s nothing else but this.” Selma had been a child prodigy, but the cruelty of the times, and of a disfiguring stroke, had sentenced her to a dull life of non-achievement in Columbia. She took out her disappointment and anger on her son, even after her death, via letters she had scheduled to be mailed to him. It takes Orville the full year and thirteen days, and more, to stop projecting *his* anger and disappointment on Columbia, and come back to that place of awe and connection he had found when he was six. "It's not how we're crippled," Miranda says, "it's how we walk."

Sure, the author inserts some jokes and stories from the internet that he probably should have omitted, but when he keeps to his own spirit, his prose can fly, and take the reader along with it. I found much to relate to in this book: the way sometimes Orville doesn't even understand his own behavior, much less that of others; the way he occasionally feels used and abused as a doctor; the way lovers can keep going along a destructive road they can’t get off even if they want to; the awkward spasms of love, hate, and resentment in step-families; the beauty of the Hudson River Valley. It’s all here, and it’s mostly all good.

I enjoyed the book, and will seek out other works by the author. ( )

I was supposed to receive this book through the Early Reviewers group, but I never did. It makes it really hard to write a review for a book that I haven't read, but seeing as I don't want the fact that there isn't a review to hurt my chances of getting to review other books for the group, you are getting this explanation. I'm not sure why I didn't get this book, but I didn't, so I haven't read it and so I won't rate it.

This is story about a man named Orville his entire life has been spent running away from Columbia and his mother. Now after finding out about her death and returning to Columbia he is forced to make a life changing decision to either stay for an entire year and thirteen days per his mothers will or leave.

This book some getting into the first two sections of the book were ok but I struggled to grasp the characters it wasn't until the wrapping up in the final section that I felt I couldn't put the book down. Overall I think its a worthwhile read with some of the moments in the book very predictable but also some that come out of no where. ( )

Orville Rose has spent his whole life running away from the people and places that make him feel uncomfortable. Now his mother is dead and as a condition of her will she wants him to stay - for a year and 13 days in his childhood home. The Spirit of the Place follows Orville through the ups and downs of those 378 days as he tries to find a place for himself in the town where he grew up. ( )

The Spirit of the Place takes place in the early 1980s over the course of a little more than a year, mainly in the fictional Hudson River Valley town of Columbia, located a few hours north of Manhattan. It follows the course of Orville Rose, who is called back to his hometown after the death of his mother. Having successfully escaped the dead-end town as a young adult, Orville is pressed to decide if he is willing to move back for “one year and thirteen” days in order to fulfill the terms of his mother’s will. Along the way Orville revisits many of the “broken” places and people in Columbia (not the least of which is himself), meets up with characters from his past, and confronts ghosts, literally.

The novel is divided into three parts, for each major turning point; each section is introduced with an appropriate quote. Along the way, Orville Rose learns as a healer he also needs, and is capable of, healing himself. He sees that “what healed people had less to do with diagnosing and treating and more to do with connecting.”

Complete review available here ( )

Don't believe the hype: The Spirit of the Place is a thoroughly mediocre book. Supposedly a "deeply moving and profoundly intelligent exploration of the complexities and rewards of family, profession and place," according to one of the blurbs on the back of my ARC, I found it instead to be a clichéd, hamfisted, and amateurish attempt at meaningful fiction in which the author appears to believe that more words=better storytelling and in which any reader who's previously picked up ten books in her lifetime will spot every single plot "twist" coming a mile away.

For all its 330-odd pages of bloat, the characters never become more than words on a page: one can spot the villains, the bad love interest, the good love interest, indeed, the ending, within the first ten pages. The ridiculous premise (shrewish Jewish mother forces errant son to return to the hometown he loathed by stipulating in her will that he stay there for 378 days in order to receive his inheritance) rankles, as does the clumsily-handled magical realism (which is never consistently deployed), the equally clumsy "jokes" (Everything in this shitty town breaks when we need it! That's our shitty town, haha!), which are meant to be endearing but are really just as tedious as they are unfunny, and the utter lack of any chemistry between the main character and his two love interests (which results in some amazingly unerotic love scenes, and further highlights how undeveloped and shallow the protagonist is).

Or, to sum it up, when after 305 pages an author still feels he must add long expository passages explaining how the main character has grown and why other lead characters acted as they did, the only thing it indicates is that said author needs to go back and rework the previous 305 pages so that the story actually reflects these elements.

The Spirit of the Place isn't all bad, however; there are a few nicely-done sentences every dozen pages or so, the digressions into quirks of New England history were entertaining, and Shem has written a very moving death scene (at seven pages in length, the only memorable and moving part of the novel). Unfortunately, these little pleasures don't justify the time needed to read the book. Give this one a miss. ( )

Shem couldn't make up his mind whether he wanted to write a medical thriller or a love story. The love story was predictable. The medical thrills were non-existent. It was interesting as a social commentary on contemporary society as seen in through the similarities with the 1980s. ( )

I was selected as an early reviewer to receive this book back in March. I did not receive it until July. I read it quickly but must admit my impression may have been colored by waiting on the publisher to supply books they promised. This book is about a doctor who travels home to settle conditions of his mothers will. I had to plod through it and I never really got to the point where I enjoyed the book. I am curious to read others reviews especially those who picked up the book outside the ER group.

Dr. Orville Rose returns to his hometown of Columbia, New York, having learned belatedly of the death of his mother. He has spent the years since he left trying to forget Columbia, and all it represents to him.

Forced to choose to stay in Columbia by the terms of his mother's will, he postpones his romance with the sensual Italian Buddhist yoga teacher Celestina Polo (perhaps my favorite person in the whole book), and steels himself for a year of mingling with the base Columbians he so despises. His old relationships - with his mother, with his childhood nemesis, his sister, and his mentor - are all rekindled and reshaped, and new relationships begin.

I enjoyed the "doctoring" parts of the book. I cried like a baby when, over several pages, he describes what it was like for him to sit with a dying friend. This is where Dr. Shem's strengths lie -- in sharing what the gift of healing really means, to both the patient and the doctor. It made me feel good to know that at least some doctors value that relationship.

Where the book failed me was with the relationship Orville has with Miranda, the town historian. I didn't feel the love, and worse yet, when they'd had "the worst argument ever" (or something to that effect) I didn't even realize it until they referred to it later. To me, it read like a discussion - a long, boring one. The passion did not come across - I could have cared less what happened to the two of them, really (and not just because I really liked Celestina Polo, either). Dr Shem's prose is beautifully written, but the dialog leaves me cold.

There are some other relationships that are cultivated over the course of the book, and some of those bore fruit. I had expected this book to be all happy endings presented in neatly tied packages, but this was not so, and I was actually relieved to find that not all of the battles were won and it was not as predictable as I felt it was shaping up to be.

The book started out well, and then lost me. It was not a book that I rushed to pick back up, or stayed up late reading. As a matter of fact, I felt quite indifferent to the cast of characters for most of it. The middle part was painfully slow, and I considered giving up on it. In the end though I am glad that I persevered - there is valuable insight, lovely language, and some ideas worth considering. ( )