Comments on: Levi’s Will by W. Dale Cramer

By: Semicolon

Semicolon — Sat, 14 Jan 2006 18:05:58 +0000

[...] I also read Plain Truth by Jodi Picoult,. The setting for this fictional lawyer/murder mystery is about as far away from Wall Street and the Gilded Age as one can get and still be in the good old USA. Plain Truth is set in Amish country, Paradise, Pennsylvania, and it tells the fictional story of a young Amish girl accused of killing her newborn infant and of the lawyer who defends her. Because of the setting and some of the issues (law vs. grace, religious vs. secular values), this book is easy to compare to compare to Levi’s Will by Dale Cramer, a book I read earlier this year. Although I only know what I’ve read about Amish life and culture, I think Cramer gets it more right than Picoult. Picoult spends the entire book trying to convince readers that the Amish are nearly perfect, that their deep religious convictions and their strict upbringing means that they cannot commit murder or other heinous crimes and still remain Amish. Then she throws in a plot twist at the end that undoes anything that she’s managed to persuade us to believe about Amish sinlessness. The story itself is good, kept me guessing until the end, and the writing is better than adequate. But her premises are flawed and undermined by the plot itself. [...]

By: Challies Dot Com

Challies Dot Com — Wed, 27 Jul 2005 12:33:42 +0000

Book Review – Levi’s Will
In 1943, Levi Mullet escapes his farm, his father, and his Amish heritage. He leaves behind family, scandal and beliefs in order to set out on his own. Defying his pacifist upbringing he enlists and fights in the Second World War. After the war he marr…

By: tim

tim — Mon, 25 Jul 2005 19:38:09 +0000

I just finished this one and went looking for reviews. Yours is by far the best of the reviews out there.

By: Semicolon » The List

Semicolon » The List — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

[...] ib–Mall Kristen Lavransdatter�Undset Lamb in Love�Brown Last Storyteller�Noble ll�Cramer B+ Lord Vanity�Shellabarger Mable Riley: A Reliable Record of Humdrum Peril and Rom [...]