About Grace - Hardcover

Doerr, Anthony

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0743261828 ISBN 13: 9780743261821

Publisher: Scribner, 2004

Synopsis

When Anthony Doerr's "The Shell Collector" was published in 2002, the "Los Angeles Times" called his stories "as close to faultless as any writer -- young or vastly experienced -- could wish for." He won the Rome Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Discover Prize, Princeton's Hodder Fellowship, and two O. Henrys, and shared the Young Lions Award. Now he has written one of the most beautiful, wise, and compelling first novels of recent times.David Winkler begins life in Anchorage, Alaska, a quiet boy drawn to the volatility of weather and obsessed with snow. Sometimes he sees things before they happen -- a man carrying a hatbox will be hit by a bus; Winkler will fall in love with a woman in a supermarket. When David dreams that his infant daughter will drown in a flood as he tries to save her, he comes undone. He travels thousands of miles, fleeing family, home, and the future itself, to deny the dream.On a Caribbean island, destitute, alone, and unsure if his child has survived or his wife can forgive him, David is sheltered by a couple with a daughter of their own. Ultimately it is she who will pull him back into the world, to search for the people he left behind.Doerr's characters are full of grief and longing, but also replete with grace. His compassion for human frailty is extraordinarily moving. In luminous prose, he writes about the power and beauty of nature and about the tiny miracles that transform our lives. "About Grace" is heartbreaking, radiant, and astonishingly accomplished.

About this title

Review:

Howard Normanauthor of "The Bird Artist" and "In Fond Remembrance of Me"Like a gazetteer of a singular existence, "About Grace" is worldly -- it takes place in Alaska, Ohio, the Caribbean -- yet the story and its unusual hero, David Winkler, right away become fixed in a reader's attentions and stay there. "About Grace" is full of exacting dreams, marvelous incident, tragicomic underpinnings, and a dedication to the fundamental eccentricity of life. With the stories in The Shell Collector, we discovered a writer of immense talent; this novel gives us a sense that Mr. Doerr may become an indispensable one.

Book Description:

‘I loved this wonderful book’ Monica Ali

About this edition

• Publisher: Scribner
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0743261828
• ISBN 13: 9780743261821
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 402