Caribou Island - Hardcover

Vann, David

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0061875724 ISBN 13: 9780061875724

Publisher: HarperCollins, 2011

Synopsis

When their construction of their dream cabin on an isolated Alaskan island is interrupted by an early Arctic winter, Gary and Irene find their marriage unraveling as they become stranded in the cabin with their daughter, Rhoda, who watches helplessly has her parents drift further apart. A first novel. 35,000 first printing.

About this title

Review:

Gets to places other novels can't touch (New York Times)

An extravagantly gifted and moving writer (Sunday Times)

Wields an unforgiving, elemental power that is breathtaking to read (Independent on Sunday)

Beautiful, richly atmospheric . . . deserves to consolidate Vann's position among America's literary high flyers (Evening Standard)

The prose here frequently achieves a quite astonishing beauty (Daily Telegraph)

A novel of fine artistry and stark emotional truth - full of our darkest currents and faintest sounds (The Times)

A writer to read and reread (Economist)

Beautifully written and bitterly funny (Financial Times)

Caribou Island is a scant 300 pages, and written in prose as pellucid as the rivers he used to fish as a boy. But it says so much: about men and women, about marriage, about the desperate gap between who we want to be and who we are (Observer)

From the Back Cover:

The prize-winning author of Legend of a Suicide delivers his highly anticipated debut novel.

On a small island in a glacier-fed lake on Alaska's Kenai Peninsula, a marriage is unraveling. Gary, driven by thirty years of diverted plans, and Irene, haunted by a tragedy in her past, are trying to rebuild their life together. Following the outline of Gary's old dream, they're hauling logs to Caribou Island in good weather and in terrible storms, in sickness and in health, to build the kind of cabin that drew them to Alaska in the first place.

But this island is not right for Irene. They are building without plans or advice, and when winter comes early, the overwhelming isolation of the prehistoric wilderness threatens their bond to the core. Caught in the emotional maelstrom is their adult daughter, Rhoda, who is wrestling with the hopes and disap-pointments of her own life. Devoted to her parents, she watches helplessly as they drift further apart.

Brilliantly drawn and fiercely honest, Caribou Island captures the drama and pathos of a husband and wife whose bitter love, failed dreams, and tragic past push them to the edge of destruction. A portrait of desolation, violence, and the darkness of the soul, it is an explosive and unforgettable novel from a writer of limitless possibility.

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0061875724
• ISBN 13: 9780061875724
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 293