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More copies of this ISBN:Gob's Griefby Chris Adrian
Staff Pick
This story has everything ? Civil War heroics, survivor guilt, social history, the most believable rendition of Walt Whitman ever attempted in a novel, and an ending of 19th-century fantastical proportions I personally found quite refreshing. Truly, it's nice to see a writer of "literary fiction" employ fantasy to so much profit, and in a first novel, no less. I love this book for many reasons, one of which is for its originality, its pure and innovative voice, and the risks Adrian took. Chris Adrian is a medical student, but I hope, purely for selfish reasons, he has the good sense to give up the blade and take up the pen for more novels like this one. Synopses & ReviewsPublisher Comments:When Chris Adrian's now classic short story, "Every Night for a Thousand Years," was published late in 1997 in the New Yorker, the readers of that magazine witnessed the flowering of an astonishing new voice. Now, four years later, Broadway Books is immensely proud to be publishing the novel that flowed from that unforgettable story. Gob's Grief recounts the lives of Gob and Tomo Woodhull, fictional sons of Victoria Woodhull, the nineteenth-century protofeminist. In August 1863, eleven-year-old Tomo runs off to fight in the Civil War, during which he tragically takes a bullet in the eye and dies. Gob grows up in a profound state of grief, and by the time he's an adult studying to be a doctor in New York City, he has hatched an idea to build a machine that might bring Tomo — indeed, all the war dead — back to life. As Gob's obsessions deepen, we are taken from the battlefields at Chickamauga Creek to the society balls of New York; from innocent childhoods in Homer, Illinois, to the building of the Brooklyn Bridge. Along the way we are presented with an astonishing cast of real and imagined characters: Walt Whitman, ministering lovingly to the Civil War wounded; Mrs. Woodhull and her sister Tennessee; Gob's love, Maci Trufant; and even the evil Urfeist, a figure who seems to float sinisterly between the living and the dead. Both convincing in its portrayal of the collective madness America went through after the carnage of the Civil War and yet otherworldly in its discussion of grief and longing, Chris Adrian's novel is at once an announcement of a major talent and an extraordinary achievement in literary art. In short, Gob's Grief is destined to be seen as an instant classic in American fiction. Review:"[A] skillfully imagined first novel....The story is repeated from each new character's vantage...and though this allows for an admirably meticulous plot, it hampers the pacing and distances the reader from the difficult, unusual characters. Much like Gob's creation, the novel is a collection of fabulous parts in need of a heart to power them, yet impressing as a flight of fancy." Publishers Weekly Review:"Highly imaginative, this is a 'large,' complex, thought-provoking work sure to arouse much discussion." Library Journal Review:"A masterpiece of retrospective mythology. Adrian hasn't just reimagined or reenacted this time of national crisis; he's managed to relive it through his characters." GQ Review:"Remarkable...utterly different. A work unlike any that has come before it." The Economist Review:"Impressive. So much more ambitious and profound than most contemporary American fiction." The Washington Post Synopsis:When young Gob Woodull's twin Tomo is killed in his very first battle of the Civil War, Gob's guilt and grief fuel a most unorthodox obsession: the building of a vast machine that will bring Tomo--indeed, all the Civil War dead--back to life. This richly imagined debut novel is "a masterpiece of retrospective mythology" (Walter Kirn, "GQ"). About the AuthorChris Adrian’s fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Ploughshares, Story and in Best American Short Stories. Currently a medical student, he lives in San Francisco. What Our Readers Are SayingAdd a comment for a chance to win!
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