Gowdy, Barbara The Romantic: A Novel ISBN 13: 9780805071900

The Romantic: A Novel - Hardcover

9780805071900: The Romantic: A Novel
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From the author of The White Bone , a piercing novel of passionate attachment and of the fear and freedom of letting go Louise Kirk learns about love and loss at an early age. When she is nine years old, her former beauty queen mother disappears, leaving a note that reads only—and incorrectly—“Louise knows how to work the washing machine.” Soon after, the Richters and their adopted son, Abel, move in across the street. Louise’s immediate devotion to the exotic, motherly Mrs. Richter is quickly transferred to her nature-loving, precociously intelligent son. From this childhood friendship evolves a love that will bind Louise and Abel forever. Though Abel moves away, Louise’s attachment becomes ever more fixed as she grows up. Separations are followed by reunions, but with every turn of their fractured relationship, Louise discovers that Abel cannot love her as fiercely and exclusively as she loves him. Only when she faces another great loss is Louise finally forced to confront the costs of abandoning herself to another. Skillfully interweaving the stories of Louise and Abel at different ages, Barbara Gowdy produces a powerful exploration of love’s many incarnations: a motherless daughter who yearns to be adopted, a husband eternally linked to a wife who has left him, a girl bewitched by the boy next door, a woman who refuses to let go of a magnetic, elusive man. Haunting and profound, The Romantic is a story about love in all its exquisite

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Review:

'Beyond good.’ Elle

‘Heartbreaking and riveting’ Red

'Quite suddenly, Canada's female novelists are taking the literary world by storm. There was never any question about the extraordinary qualities
of Carol Shields and Margaret Atwood, but now Barbara Gowdy has clearly joined them and her sixth novel underlines how she has matured. A story of abandonment and alcoholism, told with insight and warmth in the most exquisite prose, Gowdy's new novel quietly casts a distinct
spell. By the time it is over, you desperately want to start again. It is that good.' Daily Mail

‘Barbara Gowdy's speciality is dysfunctional families. That might not sound too promising, given that unhappy families, contrary to Tolstoy's
oft-quoted assertion, are all alike, but this Canadian writer is gifted with a deliciously black wit, and an ear for the quirks and tics of the unconventional. Having encompassed not only Siamese twins, transsexuals, necrophiliacs and elephants in her previous novels, she seems to be on more traditional ground in The Romantic, an examination of the mysteries of love between two damaged children ... Gowdy's compassion lights up even her most minor characters ... talented, witty and thoughtful.' Amanda Craig, New Statesman, Book of the Week

‘A clear-eyed, poetic account of how f*cked up things can get when you fall in love with someone who can’t love you back. Doomed romance at its best.’ Time Out

‘Her best yet... The sharpness of the prose remains, the ear for dialogue, the sense of character, as well as Gowdy's ability to create the occasional scene matchless for its pathos. Louise herself is a magnificent character.' Toronto Star

‘Gowdy has a remarkable ability to capture daily life through brief, emblematic descriptions that are never clichéd, frequently funny and alarmingly precise... A masterful accomplishment.' Toronto Globe & Mail

'Immediately, you feel in the company of a character and intelligence to learn from... What is remarkable and what is so cleansing about Gowdy's best work (and The Romantic belongs there) is the clarity of its storytelling.' Noah Richler, National Post

'Barbara Gowdy is beginning to claim a place alongside those other major Canadian writers, Margaret Atwood, Carol Shields and Alice Munro... she is always absorbing.' TLS

From the Publisher:
‘The Romantic [is] Barbara Gowdy’s very tender portrait of the relationship between Abel and Louise, doomed by Abel’s ongoing affair with alcohol... Gowdy has always been an expert at getting inside the heads of people who don’t quite fit in. Here, the misfit is Louise, who has that exhilarating feeling of being rescued when she finds her soulmate, Abel. As children, they play in their ravine hideout in a loving exercise in creativity. But as teenagers, drugs and booze take over, and Louise unravels when she can’t break the pattern: he loves her, he loves to drink more, and when he drinks he fucks around. And she still loves him. Gowdy’s gift is in making us understand how this kind of thing can happen, how somebody can sustain a commitment to a person so obviously going into the crapper. We know Abel’s going to die. The question is, will Louise’s self-worth and whatever life ambitions she has left die with him?... As always, the detail is precise, the observations canny. I do miss the crazy humour of Gowdy’s earlier books. But there’s something else going on here – a gorgeously painful and wholly grown-up sense of longing. That’s just as important.’ Susan G. Cole

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  • PublisherMetropolitan Books
  • Publication date2003
  • ISBN 10 0805071903
  • ISBN 13 9780805071900
  • BindingHardcover
  • Number of pages305
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