Weathering - Hardcover

Wood, Lucy

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 163286357X ISBN 13: 9781632863577

Publisher: Bloomsbury Pub Plc USA, 2016

Synopsis

A New York Times Notable Book of the Year.

Pearl doesn't know how she's ended up in the river--the same messy, cacophonous river in the same rain-soaked valley she'd been stuck in for years. But here her spirit swirls and stays . . . Ada, Pearl's daughter, doesn't know how she's ended up back in the house she left thirteen years ago--with no heating apart from a fire she can't light, no way of getting around apart from an old car she's scared to drive, and no company apart from her own young daughter, Pepper. She wants to clear out Pearl's house so she can leave and not look back. Pepper has grown used to following her restless mother from place to place, but this house, with its faded photographs, its boxes of cameras and its stuffed jackdaw, is something new. Fascinated by the scattering of people she meets, by the river that unfurls through the valley, and by the strange old woman who sits on the bank with her feet in the cold, coppery water, Pepper doesn't know why anyone would ever want to leave.

As the first frosts of autumn herald the coming of a long winter and Pepper and Ada find themselves entangled with the life of the valley, with new companions who won't be closed out, each will discover the ways that places can take root inside us, bind us together, and become us.

About this title

Review:

Each year, book blurbs tell you that a thousand new writers have fresh, distinctive voices. But fresh, distinctive voices are actually very rare. Lucy Wood has one.

Sensory, haunting and somewhat literally haunted, this novel tackles the big subjects--belonging, mortality, love--with quiet grace and intimate focus . . . Written from the points of view of all three female characters, the novel explores quintessential questions of relationship, growing up and survival. As in the river that rages through the story, though, the true vitality lies beneath the surface of Wood's exquisite and poetic writing . . . A luminous modern fairy tale.--starred review "Kirkus Reviews "

Lucy Wood is a sorceress. These stories unfold in a dreamy marine light, one that reveals the miraculous in the everyday. It is guaranteed to enrapture a reader, and you'll want to come up slowly from its depths.--Karen Russell on DIVING BELLES

Lucy Wood has an intensity and clarity of expression, deeply rooted in a sense of place. Her stories have a purity and strength, and an underlying human warmth; they resonate in the mind.--Philip Hensher on DIVING BELLES

One of Wood's great strengths is the ability to fully inhabit her characters' consciousness. She skilfully modifies her prose as she moves from one mind to another, leavening her vividly descriptive passages with snippets of speech or thought, wittily profane and colloquial . . . Pepper is a glorious child in the tradition of Harper Lee's Scout and Donna Tartt's Harriet. "The Guardian"

Recalls Marilynne Robinson's "Housekeeping ." . . Wood is a creator of worlds. This sodden river valley is one to savour. "The Daily Telegraph"

Wood beautifully renders a landscape by turns rain-soaked and snow-laden . . . The author has a gift for capturing how humans are bound to and moulded by places. "The Sunday Times"

Marvelous . . . Bears a strong resemblance to E. Annie Proulx's "The Shipping News" . . . I could tell you this novel is about the portrait of an artist as a young girl. Or the thorny but loving relationship between mothers and daughters. Or how we discover ever more of our parents in ourselves as we age. Not yet 30, Wood handles all of these themes with remarkable insight, empathy and grace.But as her title suggests, Wood's real subject is time, and how it inexorably weathers us much as it does Pearl's house--itself a character. In a novel where the three protagonists gradually take shape through the many chapters devoted to each of them, the house gets its own chapter, during which Wood echoes the terrifying beauty of the middle section of Woolf's "To the Lighthouse"--in which another crumbling house underscores how quickly time passes. "Milwaukee Journal Sentinel"

Wood's finely wrought collection has touches of a benign Angela Carter and recalls the playful yet political transmogrifications of Atwood and Byatt. "The Guardian on DIVING BELLES"

The magic is always embedded, not only in familiar stories from folklore, but in the personal myths of the characters' lives. Thus, there is a quiet realism to even the most extraordinary events. "Minneapolis Star Tribune on DIVING BELLES"

Sensory, haunting and somewhat literally haunted, this novel tackles the big subjects--belonging, mortality, love--with quiet grace and intimate focus . . . Written from the points of view of all three female characters, the novel explores quintessential questions of relationship, growing up and survival. As in the river that rages through the story, though, the true vitality lies beneath the surface of Wood's exquisite and poetic writing . . . A luminous modern fairy tale. "Kirkus Reviews""

One of Wood's great strengths is the ability to fully inhabit her characters' consciousness. She skilfully modifies her prose as she moves from one mind to another, leavening her vividly descriptive passages with snippets of speech or thought, wittily profane and colloquial . . . Pepper is a glorious child in the tradition of Harper Lee's Scout and Donna Tartt's Harriet. The Guardian

Recalls Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping . . . Wood is a creator of worlds. This sodden river valley is one to savour. The Daily Telegraph

Wood beautifully renders a landscape by turns rain-soaked and snow-laden . . . The author has a gift for capturing how humans are bound to and moulded by places. The Sunday Times

Marvelous . . . Bears a strong resemblance to E. Annie Proulx's The Shipping News . . . I could tell you this novel is about the portrait of an artist as a young girl. Or the thorny but loving relationship between mothers and daughters. Or how we discover ever more of our parents in ourselves as we age. Not yet 30, Wood handles all of these themes with remarkable insight, empathy and grace.But as her title suggests, Wood's real subject is time, and how it inexorably weathers us much as it does Pearl's house--itself a character. In a novel where the three protagonists gradually take shape through the many chapters devoted to each of them, the house gets its own chapter, during which Wood echoes the terrifying beauty of the middle section of Woolf's To the Lighthouse--in which another crumbling house underscores how quickly time passes. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Wood's finely wrought collection has touches of a benign Angela Carter and recalls the playful yet political transmogrifications of Atwood and Byatt. The Guardian on DIVING BELLES

The magic is always embedded, not only in familiar stories from folklore, but in the personal myths of the characters' lives. Thus, there is a quiet realism to even the most extraordinary events. Minneapolis Star Tribune on DIVING BELLES

Sensory, haunting and somewhat literally haunted, this novel tackles the big subjects--belonging, mortality, love--with quiet grace and intimate focus . . . Written from the points of view of all three female characters, the novel explores quintessential questions of relationship, growing up and survival. As in the river that rages through the story, though, the true vitality lies beneath the surface of Wood's exquisite and poetic writing . . . A luminous modern fairy tale. Kirkus Reviews

"

"One of Wood's great strengths is the ability to fully inhabit her characters' consciousness. She skilfully modifies her prose as she moves from one mind to another, leavening her vividly descriptive passages with snippets of speech or thought, wittily profane and colloquial . . . Pepper is a glorious child in the tradition of Harper Lee's Scout and Donna Tartt's Harriet." --The Guardian

"Recalls Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping . . . Wood is a creator of worlds. This sodden river valley is one to savour." --The Daily Telegraph

"Wood beautifully renders a landscape by turns rain-soaked and snow-laden . . . The author has a gift for capturing how humans are bound to and moulded by places." --The Sunday Times

"Marvelous . . . Bears a strong resemblance to E. Annie Proulx's The Shipping News . . . I could tell you this novel is about the portrait of an artist as a young girl. Or the thorny but loving relationship between mothers and daughters. Or how we discover ever more of our parents in ourselves as we age. Not yet 30, Wood handles all of these themes with remarkable insight, empathy and grace.But as her title suggests, Wood's real subject is time, and how it inexorably weathers us much as it does Pearl's house--itself a character. In a novel where the three protagonists gradually take shape through the many chapters devoted to each of them, the house gets its own chapter, during which Wood echoes the terrifying beauty of the middle section of Woolf's To the Lighthouse--in which another crumbling house underscores how quickly time passes." --Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

"Wood's finely wrought collection has touches of a benign Angela Carter and recalls the playful yet political transmogrifications of Atwood and Byatt." --The Guardian on DIVING BELLES

"The magic is always embedded, not only in familiar stories from folklore, but in the personal myths of the characters' lives. Thus, there is a quiet realism to even the most extraordinary events." --Minneapolis Star Tribune on DIVING BELLES

"Sensory, haunting and somewhat literally haunted, this novel tackles the big subjects--belonging, mortality, love--with quiet grace and intimate focus . . . Written from the points of view of all three female characters, the novel explores quintessential questions of relationship, growing up and survival. As in the river that rages through the story, though, the true vitality lies beneath the surface of Wood's exquisite and poetic writing . . . A luminous modern fairy tale." --Kirkus Reviews

Book Description:

From the critically acclaimed, award-winning author of Diving Belles: a beautifully bewitching novel of memories, mothers, ghosts and daughters

About this edition

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Pub Plc USA
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 163286357X
• ISBN 13: 9781632863577
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 290