Unless (P.S.) - Softcover

Shields, Carol

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0060874406 ISBN 13: 9780060874407

Publisher: Harper Perennial, 2006

Synopsis

Forty-four-year-old Reta Winters, wife, mother, writer, and translator, is living a happy life until one of her three daughters drops out of university to sit on a downtown street corner silent and cross-legged with a begging bowl in her lap and a placard round her neck that says "Goodness."

The final book from Pulitzer Prize-winner Carol Shields, Unless is a candid and deeply moving novel from one of the twentieth century's most accomplished and beloved authors.

About this title

Review:

"A brave, profound, and quirky novel with an undercurrent of the deeply amusing."--Anita Shreve, author of Sea Glass

"Finely detailed, thoughtful and sometimes even humorous, this book is highly recommended for all fiction collections."--Library Journal

"All novelists worth their fictional salt can create fine characters; Carol Shields creates lives. "--New York Times Book Review

"A fine book, poignant, witty, rich in character, vivid in its sense of place...surprisingly suspenseful."--St. Louis Post-Dispatch

"Closely observed moments create the kind of subtle textures and elegant prose that won Ms. Shields the Pulitzer Prize."--Richmond Times-Dispatch

"A wonderful, powerful book, written in a style which combines simplicity and elegance. I found it deeply moving."--Joanne Harris, author of Chocolat

"Luminous ... Shields is a consummate master of tone and acute psychological insight."--Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

"Unless succeeds beautifully...Shields [is] an expert at illuminating the complicated dynamics of off-kilter families."--Atlanta Journal-Constitution

"An engaging, memorable novel."--Cleveland Plain Dealer

"The best of her novels...fearless, smart, funny, beautifully written."--New Orleans Times-Picayune

From the Back Cover:

'I'm not interested, the way some people are, in being sad. I've had a look, and there's nothing down that road... Well now! What about the ripping sound behind my eyes, the starchy tearing of fabric, end to end; what about the need I have to curl up my knees when I sleep?'

Reta Winters, aged 44, has started a new sort of life. She has discovered the meaning of loss for the first time.

For all of her days, Reta has enjoyed the useful monotony of happiness: a loving family, good friends, growing success as a writer of light fiction, novels 'for summertime'. Then her eldest daughter suddenly withdraws from the world, abandoning university, family and loving boyfriend to sit on a street corner, uncommunicative but for a sign around her neck bearing one word, 'GOODNESS'. The anguish of her loss leads Reta into a desperate search for the possible causes of her daughter's retreat. Casting her net ever wider, her enquiry turns into an unflinching, often very funny meditation on our society and where we find meaning and hope.

Warmth, passion and wisdom come together in Shield's remarkably supple prose. At once the discomforting, ultimately consoling story of one family's anguish and a searing portrait of life at the dawn of the twenty-first century 'Unless' is a dazzling and daring novel from the undisputed master of extraordinary fictions about so-called 'ordinary' lives.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0060874406
• ISBN 13: 9780060874407
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 352