The Scenic Route: A Novel (P.S.) - Softcover

Kirshenbaum, Binnie

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0060784741 ISBN 13: 9780060784744

Publisher: Ecco Press, 2009

Synopsis

Pub Date: 2009-05-12 Pages: 317 Language: English Publisher: HarperCollins US Divorced. alone. and unexpectedly unemployed. Sylvia Landsman flees to Italy. where she meets Henry. a wistful. married. middle-aged expatriate Taking off on. a grand tour of Europe bankrolled with his wifes money. Henry and Sylvia follow a circuitous route around the continent-as Sylvia entertains Henry with stories of her peculiar family and her damaged friends. of dead ducks and Alma Mahler. Her narrative is a tapestry of remembrances and regrets ... and her secret shame:. a small. cowardly sin of omission Yet when the opportunity arises for Sylvia and Henry to do something small but brave. the refrain if only returns to haunt her. leaving Sylvia with one more story of love lived and lost.

About this title

Product Description:

Divorced, alone, and unexpectedly unemployed, Sylvia Landsman flees to Italy, where she meets Henry, a wistful, married, middle-aged expatriate. Taking off on a grand tour of Europe bankrolled with his wife's money, Henry and Sylvia follow a circuitous route around the continent--as Sylvia entertains Henry with stories of her peculiar family and her damaged friends, of dead ducks and Alma Mahler. Her narrative is a tapestry of remembrances and regrets...and her secret shame: a small, cowardly sin of omission. Yet when the opportunity arises for Sylvia and Henry to do something small but brave, the refrain "if only" returns to haunt her, leaving Sylvia with one more story of love lived and lost.

Review:

"It doesn't get much more summer than road trips and ill-advised flings, and Kirshenbaum's great new novel has both, a perfect story told with a huge heart."--Publishers Weekly Favorite Reads for the Summer (09)

"Introspective, mordant and entertaining, The Scenic Route is a road-trip drama that eloquently articulates its characters' conflicting desires."--Time Out New York

"[A] moving, bittersweet novel."--More Magazine

"Life, storytelling, and memory all take us down long and winding roads. Binnie Kirshenbaum deftly explores the intersections of the three in 'The Scenic Route, ' her bittersweet fifth novel about lost love and friendship."--Boston Globe

"Binnie Kirshenbaum's witty, insightful European road novel turns the midlife-crisis-romance genre on its head."--The Daily Beast

"I'm much impressed with Binnie Kirshenbaum's THE SCENIC ROUTE, an idiosyncratic and totally winning 'romance, ' in which sentiment and cynicism are poised in a most virtuoso performance."--Joyce Carol Oates

"Tremendously readable...miraculously, Kirshenbaum avoids sentimentality."--Los Angeles Times

"Absurdly underrated Kirshenbaum is at her darkly comic and boldly encompassing best here, diverting us with hairpin-turn humor while slipping us hard truths about memory and inheritance, betrayal and guilt, and the inevitable end of the road."--Booklist

"Binnie Kirshenbaum is a fearlessly unsentimental storyteller, a gifted comic writer and a thoughtful archeologist of family life. The Scenic Route is warm, wise, and very difficult to put down."--Gary Shteyngart

"Binnie Kirshenbaum is a tremendous talent. Her novels are sexy, intelligent, complex, and provocative; they press against your heart the way old lovers do."--Junot Diaz

About this edition

• Publisher: Ecco Press
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0060784741
• ISBN 13: 9780060784744
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 352