The Painted Table

October 7, 2013
Debut novelist Field’s heroine, Saffee Quimby, desperately desires to escape the mental illness that has afflicted her mother, Joann, all her life. In this multigenerational saga, readers are introduced to Joann as a young girl, traumatized by a prairie fire and the death of her own mother. Her descent into mental illness is described vividly, and its effects on her family (isolation and embarrassment) come across realistically. The heirloom table that figured prominently in Joann’s torment is eventually bequeathed to Saffee, who must decide if it will hold similar sway over her or if perhaps she can uncover its redemptive qualities. Saffee’s spiritual growth plays a vital role in her journey toward wholeness. This difficult but beautiful story of hurt and healing, desperation and hope, offers an intriguing view inside the world of the mentally ill and their loved ones. But the power of that insight is undercut by storytelling flaws: the novice author has a tendency to tell readers the obvious rather than allowing the story to reveal it. Agent: Patti Hummel, Benchmark Group Literary Agency.

Starred review from November 15, 2013

Having lost her mother at an early age, Joann Kirkeborg found refuge from sadness and fear by hiding under the large table the family brought with them from Norway. But after her marriage to Nels and the birth of their daughter, Saffee, Joann develops a mental illness and focuses her attention on the table of her childhood, now in her possession. She repeatedly paints it, perhaps in the hopes of erasing a painful past that she cannot escape and questions that she is afraid to answer about the present. After Joann's death, Saffee receives the table and worries that she, too, may have inherited Joann's psychosis. VERDICT In this beautifully written debut novel, the author expertly depicts the devastating impact that mental illness can have on family members. Recommended for fans of Michael MacDonald's All Souls: A Family Story from Southie.

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 15, 2013
The table's journey began in nineteenth-century Norway, then it was brought to the Dust Bowlera prairie by Joann's father and mother. Joann often found refuge under the table, and it was there that she and her siblings hid one frightful afternoon as a prairie fire threatened their lives and livelihood. The event haunts her for the rest of her life, inducing her to paint the table over and over again in fits of madness. Growing up in the shadow of her mother's illness, Saffee learns to fear the world around her and comes to detest the table as a symbol of her mother's instability. But as Saffee begins her adult life, she is given a chance to face the past and leave her fears behind if she can first face the symbol of the table. Spanning four generations, the table follows a family's history of mental illness and its triumph over it. Saffee's story is insightful and touching and, reading in places like a Christian how-to, will especially appeal to devotional readers.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)