Christina Baker Kline the author of the novel "Orphan Train" was born in Cambridge, England, and raised there as well as in the Maine and American South. She has graduated Cambridge, Yale, and the University of Virginia. She has taught nonfiction and fiction writing, poetry, English literature, literary theory, and women’s studies at Yale, Drew University, and NYU, and served as Writer-in-Residence at Fordham University for four years. Christina Baker Kline is the author of five novels, including the #1 New York Times bestselling Orphan Train. Her other novels include "Bird in Hand", "The Way Life Should Be", "Desire Lines" and "Sweet Water". In addition to her five novels, Kline has written five nonfiction books. She wrote and edited two
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It was believed that he traveled on an orphan train from New York to Jamestown and to North Dakota with his four siblings when he was only the age of 10 years old. Her own background is partly Irish so she decided that she wanted to write about an Irish girl who has kept silent about the events that led her to the orphan train. Overtime in the novel Vivian moves from shame of her past to accepting …show more content…
Molly’s present-day story in Maine seems to be closely related, but as we listen to the two characters talk, we find hope and power in both of these seemingly different lives. Although the girls are vulnerable, left with strangers, they show courage. Kline brings to perspective a largely hidden chapter of American history, while portraying the coming-of-age of two young women.
In Orphan Train, Vivian Daly’s first-person, past-tense account of her experience on the orphan train and her journey from Irish-Catholic immigrant to Protestant Midwesterner alternates with the present-day, present-tense, third-person-limited story of Vivian’s life on the Maine coast. (I have quite a bit of experience with this kind of autobiographical narrative, and am intimately familiar with its quirks, subtexts, and possibilities. Some time ago I wrote a nonfiction book with my mother called The Conversation Begins: Mothers and Daughters Talk about Living Feminism, for which we interviewed, and created first-person accounts for, more than 60 women.) The present-day story takes place over six weeks; the narrative arc of Vivian’s history encompasses 90
It was believed that he traveled on an orphan train from New York to Jamestown and to North Dakota with his four siblings when he was only the age of 10 years old. Her own background is partly Irish so she decided that she wanted to write about an Irish girl who has kept silent about the events that led her to the orphan train. Overtime in the novel Vivian moves from shame of her past to accepting …show more content…
Molly’s present-day story in Maine seems to be closely related, but as we listen to the two characters talk, we find hope and power in both of these seemingly different lives. Although the girls are vulnerable, left with strangers, they show courage. Kline brings to perspective a largely hidden chapter of American history, while portraying the coming-of-age of two young women.
In Orphan Train, Vivian Daly’s first-person, past-tense account of her experience on the orphan train and her journey from Irish-Catholic immigrant to Protestant Midwesterner alternates with the present-day, present-tense, third-person-limited story of Vivian’s life on the Maine coast. (I have quite a bit of experience with this kind of autobiographical narrative, and am intimately familiar with its quirks, subtexts, and possibilities. Some time ago I wrote a nonfiction book with my mother called The Conversation Begins: Mothers and Daughters Talk about Living Feminism, for which we interviewed, and created first-person accounts for, more than 60 women.) The present-day story takes place over six weeks; the narrative arc of Vivian’s history encompasses 90