Anne Tyler gives us a wise, haunting, and deeply moving new novel in which she explores how a middle-aged man, ripped apart by the death of his wife, is gradually restored by her frequent appearances -- in their house, on the roadway, in the market.
Crippled in his right arm and leg, Aaron has spent his childhood fending off a sister who wants to manage him. When he meets Dorothy, a plain, outspoken, independent young woman, she is like a breath of fresh air. Unhesitatingly, he marries her, and they have a relatively happy, unremarkable life together.
But when a tree crashes into their house and Dorothy is killed, Aaron feels as though he has been erased forever. Only Dorothy's unexpected appearances from the dead help him to live in the moment and find some peace. Gradually he discovers, as he works in the family's vanity-publishing business, (turning out titles that presume to guide beginners through the trails of life) that maybe for this beginner there is a way of saying goodbye.
A beautiful, subtle exploration of loss and recovery, pierced throughout with Anne Tyler's humour, wisdom, and always penetrating look at human foibles.
From the Hardcover edition. Views: 161
Annie
A loving mother and wife, Annie O'Neill was the heart of the small community of Kiss River. But her generous nature hid a darker side that remained secret for years after her tragic death.
Lacey
When Lacey O'Neill finally learns the shattering truth about the mother she's spent a decade emulating, the foundation of her life begins to crumble. Then her close childhood friend dies, leaving her teenage daughter, Mackenzie, in Lacey's care, and Lacey unwillingly finds herself in the role of mother.
Mackenzie
Uprooted by her mother's death, Mackenzie resents her new home of Kiss River. She wants nothing to do with the father who never knew she existed--and especially not her mother's oldest friend. But the person who could understand her best might be the one she resents most: Lacey.
As the secrets of the O'Neill family are brought to light, Her Mother's Shadow explores how the dark corners of the past can be illuminated by the hope that truth brings. Views: 161
Over the past twenty-five years, New Stories from the South has published the work of now well-known writers, including James Lee Burke, Andre Dubus, Barbara Kingsolver, John Sayles, Joshua Ferris, and Abraham Verghese and nurtured the talents of many others, including Larry Brown, Jill McCorkle, Brock Clarke, Lee Smith, and Daniel Wallace.
This twenty-fifth volume reachs out beyond the South to one of the most acclaimed short story writers of our day. Guest editor Amy Hempel admits, “I’ve always had an affinity for writers from the South,” and in her choices, she’s identified the most inventive, heartbreaking, and chilling stories being written by Southerners all across the country.
From the famous (Rick Bass, Wendell Berry, Elizabeth Spencer, Wells Tower, Padgett Powell, Dorothy Allison, Brad Watson) to the finest new talents, Amy Hempel has selected twenty-five of the best, most arresting stories of the past year. The 2010 collection is proof of the enduring vitality of the short form and the vigor of this ever-changing yet time-honored series. Views: 161
Creepy. Peculiar. Fairy. Goblin. Liar. Weirdo. Crank. Genius.
No one knows what to make of Juliet Slater, not even her mother. And clothes, boys, school, friends, the changing seasons and what other people think - none of these things seem to matter to Juliet. She spends hours in her room with incomprehensible mathematical text books, her mind voyaging in strange seas of thought, alone. Is she a genius? It might take the rest of her life to find out.
While Stella Gibbons was celebrated for her beloved bestseller Cold Comfort Farm, the manuscript for Pure Juliet lay unseen and forgotten until it was brought to light by her family in 2014, and is published here for the first time in Vintage Classics. A tale that travels from an eco-millionaire's British country idyll to an Arabian Nights-style fantasy of the Middle East, this is a treat for fans of this witty, curious and always surprising author. Views: 161
Poems of elegy in the aftermath of a great love from the internationally best-selling, award-winning novelist (Fugitive Pieces, The Winter Vault) and poet.
In* All We Saw, * Anne Michaels returns with strikingly original poems to explore one of her essential concerns: "what love makes us capable of, and incapable of." Here are the ways in which passion must accept, must insist, that "death . . . give / not only take from us." This piercing short collection treats desire in a style that is chaste, spare, figuratively modulated, and almost classical in its precision. In lyrics that ponder what happens to the bodies of lovers--so vital when together, different when apart, death coming to one before the other--Michaels embraces both the intimacy and the vastness of the connection between two people. Love's sheltering understanding is a powerful presence in all the poems, with its particular imagery (the ringing fog, the white page of the bed), as is the shattering loss of its end. With Michaels, we enter a space that is "not inside / not outside: dusk's / doorway," where memory might be kept alive. Views: 161
The story of an ageing judge traveling through rural China and of a criminal he encounters. Views: 161
West of Rome's two novellas, "My Dog Stupid" and "The Orgy," fulfill the promise of their rousing titles. The latter novella opens with virtuoso description: "His name was Frank Gagliano, and he did not believe in God. He was that most singular and startling craftsman of the building trade-a left-handed bricklayer. Like my father, Frank came from Torcella Peligna, a cliff-hugging town in the Abruzzi. Lean as a spider, he wore a leather cap and puttees the year around, and he was so bowlegged a dog could lope between his knees without touching them." Views: 161
In the summer of 1856, three companies of handcarts were outfitted and sent west from Iowa to the Valley of the Great Salt Lake. All went well, and they arrived without undue incident. But two additional companies - one captained by James G. Willie, and the other by Edward Martin - left England late in the season. When they arrived at Iowa City, they were long past the time for safe departure across the plains. By the time they left Florence, Nebraska, with still more than a thousand miles to go, it was near the end of August. As if that were not serious enough, President Brigham Young thought that the arrival of the third company ended the migration for that season and ordered the resupply wagons back to Salt Lake. Fire of the Covenant is the story of those handcart pioneers and their exodus to the Salt Lake Valley. Author Gerald N. Lund has used the same techniques present in The Work and the Glory series to blend fictional characters into the tapestry of actual historical events, making this a story filled with all the elements of great drama - tragedy, triumph, pathos, courage, sacrifice, surrender and faith. Views: 161
A.E.W. Mason was a 20th century British politician, but today he\'s best known for the classic The Four Feathers, a story about the virtues and vices of wartime. Views: 161
The Third Reich tightened its grip on the German people- and Karl Erlich watched with horror and disbelief as his beloved twin brother Kurt grasped Hitler's madness and made it his own. Time No Longer follows the strange fate of the Erlich brothers- their wives, their family, their country- in the nightmare days of the Nazi's rise to power. Views: 161
La Puebla de los Angeles is peculiar, even among the cities of modern Mexico; peculiar in the fact, that two-thirds of its population are composed of priests, pelados, poblanas, pickpockets, and incarones of a bolder type. Perhaps I have been too liberal in allowing a third to the “gente de bueno,” or respectable people. There are travellers who have altogether denied their existence; but this may be an exaggeration on the other side. Trusting to my own souvenirs, I think I can remember having met with honest men—and women too—in the City of the Angels. But I shall not be positive about their proportion to the rest of the population. It may be less than a third—certainly it is not more! Views: 161
