Dalva - Softcover

Jim Harison

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0671678175 ISBN 13: 9780671678173

Publisher: Washington Square Press, 1988

Synopsis

This mystic portrait of America, from the Indian wars through the confusions of Vietnam and the cynicism of the 1980s, chronicles the life and memories of a single woman. Through the prism of her experience, we see refracted the events that shaped five generations of her pioneer family.

About this title

Review

"The London Sunday Times"

Jim Harrison is a writer with immortality in him.

"Publishers Weekly"

Entertaining, moving, and memorable...a cast of fascinating characters.

"The Boston Globe"

Harrison's stories move with random power and reach in the manner of Melville and Faulkner.

"The Washington Post Book World"

Dalva...is that rare fictional creation, a character whom the reader dearly would love to meet.

Louise Erdrich

"The Chicago Tribune"

Monumental...Bighearted, an unabashedly romantic love story...There is no putting aside "Dalva,"

"San Francisco Chronicle"

A fascinating novel about an American woman...Harrison uses his pen as a sword to right wrongs and settle scores....He takes bigger risks, letting go of old habits and surrendering to his own impassioned imagination.

"The Los Angeles Times Book Review"

Jim Harrison's "Dalva" is the story of a remarkable modern woman's search for her son....Harrison beautifully conveys Dalva's essential femininity...Dalva asserts that she has never been seduced -- has always, subtly, done the seducing of lovers herself...Harrison's "Dalva" may well seduce you, too.

Louise Erdich

"Chicago Tribune"

Fascinating...a work of humor and a unified lament....Voices that cut through time and cross the barriers of culture and gender to achieve a work in chorus ...there is no putting aside "Dalva" until the time bombs go off, the identities are revealed, and the skeletons almost literally tumble from the closets..."Dalva" is suspended in its own beauty...a book to...read with trust and exuberance.

"The New York Times Book Review"

Harrison's storytelling instincts are nearly flawless...The people in "Dalva" reemerge as full-blooded individuals who almost incidentally embody much of the innocence, carelessness, and urgency that played so large a part in the settling of this country. Best of all, perhaps, are Mr. Harrison's descriptions of the land -- the untamed deserts, plains, forests, and arroyos of what was once the Western frontier...tough but rhapsodic language.

The London Sunday Times Jim Harrison is a writer with immortality in him.

From the Back Cover

From her home on the California coast, Dalva hears the broad silence of the Nebraska prairie where she was born and longs for the son she gave up for adoption years before. Beautiful, fearless, tormented, at forty-five she has lived a life of lovers and adventures. Now, Dalva begins a journey that will take her back to the bosom of her family, to the half-Sioux lover of her youth, and to a pioneering great-grandfather whose journals recount the bloody annihilation of the Plains Indians. On the way, she discovers a story that stretches from East to West, from the Civil War to Wounded Knee and Vietnam -- and finds the balm to heal her wild and wounded soul.

Edition details

• Publisher: Washington Square Press
• Publication date: 1988
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0671678175
• ISBN 13: 9780671678173
• Binding: Paperback