Abide With Me - Softcover

Strout, Elizabeth

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0743462289 ISBN 13: 9780743462280

Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK, 2007

Synopsis

From the Man Booker Prize longlisted author of My Name is Lucy Barton
Katherine is only five-years-old. Struck dumb with grief at her mother's death, it is down to her father, the heartbroken minister Tyler Caskey, to bring his daughter out of silence she has observed in the wake of the family's tragedy. But Tyler Caskey is barely surviving himself. His cold, church-assigned home is colder still since Lauren's death, and he struggles to find the right words for his sermons; struggles to be a leader to his congregation when he himself is lost. When Katherine's schoolteacher calls to discuss his daughter's anti-social behaviour, it sparks a chain of events that begins to tear down Tyler's defences. The small-town rumour-mill has much to make of Katherine's odd behaviour, and even more to say about Tyler's relationship with his housekeeper, Connie Hatch. And in Tyler's darkest hour, a startling discovery will test his congregation's humanity - and his own will to endure the kinds of trials that sooner or later test us all. From the Orange Prize-shortlisted author of Amy & Isabelle, this is a startlingly beautiful novel about love and abandonment, faith and hypocrisy; and the peril of family secrets...

About this title

Review

‘As perfect a novel as you will ever read . . . So astonishingly good that I shall be reading it once a year for the foreseeable future and very probably for the rest of my life’ (Evening Standard on Olive Kitteridge)

‘Strout animates the ordinary with astonishing force’ (The New Yorker on Olive Kitteridge)

‘Masterfully wrought’ (Vanity Fair on Olive Kitteridge)

‘Strout has a wonderful ability to turn a phrase...[these] pages hold what life puts in: experience, joy, grief, and the sometimes-painful journey to love’ (Observer on Olive Kitteridge)

'I am deeply impressed. Writing of this quality comes from a commitment to listening, from a perfect attunement to the human condition, from an attention to reality so exact that it goes beyond a skill and becomes a virtue. I have never read her before and I knew within a few sentences that here was an artist to value and respect' (Hillary Mantel on My Name is Lucy Barton)

'Strout's best novel yet' (Ann Pachett on My Name is Lucy Barton)

'An exquisite novel... in its careful words and vibrating silences, My Name Is Lucy Barton offers us a rare wealth of emotion, from darkest suffering to - 'I was so happy. Oh, I was happy' - simple joy' (Claire Messud, New York Times Book Review on My Name is Lucy Barton)

'So good I got goosebumps... a masterly novel of family ties by one of America's finest writers' (Sunday Times on My Name is Lucy Barton)

'My Name is Lucy Barton confirms Strout as a powerful storyteller immersed in the nuances of human relationships... Deeply affecting novel...visceral and heartbreaking...If she hadn't already won the Pulitzer for Olive Kitteridge this new novel would surely be a contender' (Observer on My Name is Lucy Barton)

'Hypnotic...yielding a glut of profoundly human truths to do with flight, memory and longing' (Mail on Sunday on My Name is Lucy Barton)

Synopsis

Katherine is only five-years-old. Struck dumb with grief at her mother's death, it is down to her father, the heartbroken minister Tyler Caskey, to bring his daughter out of silence she has observed in the wake of the family's tragedy. But Tyler Caskey is barely surviving himself. His cold, church-assigned home is colder still since Lauren's death, and he struggles to find the right words for his sermons; struggles to be a leader to his congregation when he himself is lost. When Katherine's schoolteacher calls to discuss his daughter's anti-social behaviour, it sparks a chain of events that begins to tear down Tyler's defences. The small-town rumour-mill has much to make of Katherine's odd behaviour, and even more to say about Tyler's relationship with his housekeeper, Connie Hatch. And in Tyler's darkest hour, a startling discovery will test his congregation's humanity - and his own will to endure the kinds of trials that sooner or later test us all. From the Orange Prize-shortlisted author of Amy & Isabelle, this is a startlingly beautiful novel about love and abandonment, faith and hypocrisy; and the peril of family secrets...

About this edition

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0743462289
• ISBN 13: 9780743462280
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 304