These High, Green Hills

"In Karon's world, all that is good and pure about American culture and human nature resides in Mitford. To be sure, there are dramas and human failings, but the small town is nonetheless defined by its sanctity and its community. It's like Peyton Place, only the characters are nicer....As urban culture bustles with noise, ambition and striving, Mitford exists in a bucolic twilight zone....[T]here are no malls, no restaurant chains, no cineplexes, no tourists....The writing is simplistic....Her prose is unadorned, with few flourishes, basic verbs and high school grammar. The effect is both perfect and dull....What sustains the books is the underlying framework. Karon offers the solace that, somewhere, an America exists that conforms to the picture of small towns, white picket fences, homemade pies, the kindhearted country doctor..., the church, prayer..., life and death, community and home....Unlike potboilers, Karon's books offer an escape that is explicitly moral.Karon, Jan is the author of 'These High, Green Hills', published 1997 under ISBN 9781574901030 and ISBN 1574901036.