With

Picked this book up without knowing what I was getting into, and boy, was I pleasantly surprised. This author's writing style and choice of topics, even, is unusual, refreshing, interesting, etc. I'm a big reader, but have never read a book like this before. Can't wait to read more of his stuff.

Harington obviously has a large arsenal of writing styles and imagination at his fingertips because this novel is unlike one I that have ever read before. If you enjoy the country life in any fashion, then you must read this novel. Like I said, there are a few areas where it reads a little slow, but slosh through it... the middle of the book, the climax and the resolution are all fantastic.

Harington has written a multi-layered, mystical tale about love and relationships, and the coming of age of a young girl, surviving alone in a mountain cabin. But this, as all his novels, is so much more than a simple narrative. An intellectual masterpiece,it is best enjoyed slowly, in sips, as the tale unfolds and the language enfolds. If you have not yet discovered Harington, you will be delighted with this book, and happier still to know that it is only one of a series about the people and events of Stay More, Arkansas.

At the tender age of 8 years, Robin Kerr had to learn how to fend for herself on a remote, inaccessible, mountain-top in the wilds of the Ozark mountain range. Until she was 18, Robin had no human company but she did not lack for animal companionship and the company of the"live ghost" of a young boy who had himself once lived on the mountain. With is a major, 491-page novel that is written by author Donald Harington (a professor and lecturer of art and art history) with a feeling for language enriched with southern idioms and an almost lyrical sense of expression. Very strongly endorsed and recommended, With is one of those original and finely crafted novels that will be discovered with appreciation over and over by generations of future readers.

I actually had another book in my hands when I spotted this new novel by Donald Harington. My heart literally jumped for joy. A new novel by one of my most favorite writers! Immediately, I put the other book back and picked up this one. Later that same evening, I began to read...And I was not disappointed. Although I have enjoyed all of his recent novels, I could not help but compare them with The Architecture of the Arkansas Ozarks, Some Other Place. The Right Place., and my personal favorite, Let Us Build Us A City. To my mind, those recent novels simply did not to the same degree elicit the same response (that wonderful glorious feeling!) in me as did those earlier titles. But now, with WITH...I am beside myself with joy.I cannot bear to relate the plot. There are too many surprises, too many narrative twists, too much...joy (there it is again!); to spoil any part of this with plot recitation is at the very least, a venal sin.Audaciously written in a style and technique befitting the best the postmodern has to offer, WITH is a novel so rewarding, no reader can go wrong both reading it and pushing it into the hands of their friends. Those friends will thank you...over and over again.