Lark and TermiteNATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Night Watch, a "powerful and emotionally piercing" novel (The New York Times) set during the 1950 in West Virginia and Korea, that intertwines family secrets, war, dreams, and ghosts in a story about the love that unites us all. Lark and Termite is a rich, wonderfully alive novel about seventeen year old Lark and her brother, Termite, living in West Virginia in the 1950s. Their mother, Lola, is absent, while their aunt, Nonie, raises them as her own, and Termite’s father, Corporal Robert Leavitt, is caught up in the early days of the Korean War. Told with deep feeling, the novel invites us deep into the hearts and thoughts of Lark, on the verge of adulthood, and her brother, Termite, a child unable to walk and talk, who is filled with radiance. We are also with Corporal Leavitt, trapped by friendly fire alongside the Korean children he tries to rescue. We see Lark’s dreams for Termite and her own future, and how, with the aid of a childhood love and a spectral social worker, she makes them happen. We learn of Lola’s love for her soldier husband and her children, and unravel the mystery of her relationship with Nonie. We discover the lasting connections between past and future on the night the town experiences an overwhelming flood, and we follow Lark and Termite as their lives are changed forever. |
Contents
| 3 | |
move his chair into the yard under the tree | 33 |
Nonie The Social Services people marched right in | 49 |
Termite He sees through the blue | 63 |
Leavitt Youll be safe here | 72 |
decorate the cake in three pale colors | 85 |
Nonie Theres choice but no choice | 109 |
Leavitt He can hear the pain | 126 |
Termite In the basement the cold comes up | 169 |
Leavitt As though no time has passed | 183 |
Lark Rain falling across the alley | 191 |
Nonie Charlie insisted we go home | 224 |
Termite He hears the rain open and shut | 233 |
Leavitt Mashuhyo mashuhyo | 240 |
put Termite in the wheelchair | 247 |
Nonie There we all sat in a room | 274 |
Lark He starts moving the colors | 139 |
come into the kitchen soaking wet | 162 |
Acknowledgments | 283 |
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Common terms and phrases
24th Infantry Division alley arms attic baby basement Billy blue boxes breath cake Charlie Charlie's close colors Coral Gables dark door empty eyes face fast feel fingers flood girl Gladdy Gladdy's gone grass hair hand hard head hear hold inside Jayne Anne Phillips Joey JULY 26 keep kids kitchen KMAG knew Korean Language Immersion Lark says Lark's leans leave Leavitt light listen Lola Lola's look mother move never Nick Tucci night Nonie says Nonie's Noreen Occupied Japan Onslow pale pull push quiet radio rail yard rain restaurant river roar Robert Leavitt Seoul shape smell Solly Solly's someone sound Stamble stands stay steps stop talk tell Termite's chair There's things told Tompkins touch town tracks train tunnel turn wagon waiting walk wall watch wheelchair window Winfield wrist