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The Fates Will Find Their Way

by Hannah Pittard

The Fates Will Find Their Way Cover

 

Staff Pick

Told through melodic, purposeful prose from a first-person-plural perspective, Hannah Pittard's stunning debut novel is an eerie, perfectly pitched recounting of adolescence that skillfully captures the blurred line between the tangible and the imagined. Keep an eye on this writer.
Recommended by Megan, Powells.com

Synopses & Reviews

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Publisher Comments:

Sixteen-year-old Nora Lindell is missing. And the neighborhood boys she left behind are caught forever in the heady current of her absence.

As the days and years pile up, the mystery of her disappearance grows kaleidoscopically. A collection of rumors, divergent suspicions, and tantalizing what ifs, Nora Lindell's story is a shadowy projection of teenage lust, friendship, reverence, and regret, captured magically in the disembodied plural voice of the boys who still long for her.

Told in haunting, percussive prose, Hannah Pittard's beautifully crafted story tracks the emotional progress of the sister Nora left behind, the other families in their leafy suburban enclave, and the individual fates of the boys in her thrall. Far more eager to imagine Nora's fate than to scrutinize their own, the boys sleepwalk into an adulthood of jobs, marriages, families, homes, and daughters of their own, all the while pining for a girl — and a life — that no longer exists, except in the imagination.

A masterful literary debut that shines a light into the dream-filled space between childhood and all that follows, The Fates Will Find Their Way is a story about the stories we tell ourselves — of who we once were and might someday become.

Review:

"Pittard leads the reader into a slew of possibilities spinning out from a 16-year-old girl's disappearance, in her intriguing, beguiling debut. After Nora Lindell goes missing on Halloween, stories about her disappearance multiply: she got into a car with an unknown man, she was seen at the airport, she simply walked away, she was abducted. Pittard dips into the points-of-view of various classmates to explore these possibilities and more. Perhaps Nora was murdered. One theory sends her to Arizona, where she raises twin daughters with a lover named Mundo, and another path leads her to a near-death experience in a cafe bombing in India. The story also outlines effects of the disappearance on Nora's family and classmates, who, even as they graduate, marry, and have children, never quite let go of Nora — possibly to avoid their own lives. Though the truth about Nora remains tantalizingly elusive — the reader is never quite sure what happened — the many possibilities are so captivating, and Pittard's prose so eloquent, that there's a far richer experience to be had in the chain of maybes and what-ifs than in nailing down the truth. (Feb.)" Publishers Weekly (Copyright PWyxz LLC)

Review:

"A debut novel sure to linger with readers...Though relatively brief, the novel has great depth, enhanced by Pittard’s precision of language. The result is a stimulating examination of loss, memory, history, and perception and how the past never leaves — indeed is the main factor in the present." Publishers Weekly, Galley Talk

Review:

"The Fates Will Find Their Way is a bold, wise, magical, and authentic novel about youthful infatuation and its legacy. Hannah Pittard’s beautifully confident prose is sure to make readers look back on their own teenage years with fresh wonder." Vendela Vida

Review:

"The tension builds throughout the book, keeping the reader eager to find out what happened... This debut from McSweeney's award winner Pittard is smart, eerie, and suspenseful and will appeal to fans of novels combining those elements." Bloomberg News

Review:

"The Fates Will Find Their Way is...about the way our imaginations can carry us from a dispiriting selfishness to a nascent empathy, and the way we continue to inflict — or even just observe — pain until that empathy arrives." Library Journal

Synopsis:

Reminiscent of The Virgin Suicides, an eerily evocative and masterfully crafted literary debut about a teenage girl who goes missing and the effect her disappearance has on the boys she grew up with
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About the Author

Hannah Pittard’s fiction has appeared in McSweeney's, The Oxford American, The Mississippi Review, BOMB, Nimrod, StoryQuarterly, and was included in the 2008 Best American Short Stories' 100 Distinguished Stories. She is the recipient of the 2006 Amanda Davis Highwire Fiction Award, and has taught fiction at the University of Virginia, where she was also a Henry Hoyns Fellow.
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What Our Readers Are Saying

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Average customer rating based on 6 comments:
Benjamin Weaver, January 2, 2012 (view all comments by Benjamin Weaver)
Collectively narrated by a group of boys remembering the disappearance of sixteen-year-old Nora and reflecting on how it has shaped their lives, this novel was absolutely captivating. I cannot recall a book that made me think, "this is what life feels like" with more intensity than The Fates Will Find Their Way. The joys, disappointments, burdens and triumphs all rang true. I loved this book. I haven't had my copy since I finished reading it, too many of my friends have needed it too. The Fates Will Find Their Way is incredibly clever, and well worth your time.
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ddills, January 1, 2012 (view all comments by ddills)
I love this book. It was a quick read, but has left lasting indelible impression on me. The characters and situations were completely relatable, and the story was extremely compelling. My favorite read of the year, my favorite indispensable of 2011.
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OneMansView, May 11, 2011 (view all comments by OneMansView)
Most of us harbor some sort of fantasies

Though the reasons lay beyond their ability to articulate, the sudden disappearance of the enigmatic 16-year-old Nora Lindell stunned a close-knit group of boys who attended high school with her in a mid-Atlantic state and remained on their minds for nearly three decades. The author, that is the boys, by piecing together crumbs of speculative evidence gives Nora a tentative, vague existence, first in Arizona - even giving birth - and then in a same-sex relationship in India. Such speculation is certainly intriguing, but it is the elusive significance of her vanishing to these boys that is the author’s focus.

At first, most obvious is the divide between the social arbiters, that is the network of mothers, and the boys. Since the mothers view the incident as regrettable and to be managed and downplayed, the guys are forced to conceal their discussions about Nora, as well as personal thoughts. The secretiveness is definitely reinforcing. Interestingly, as husbands in later years, the enforcement of similar rules has been transferred to their wives. Doubtlessly, Nora also represents escape and possibilities for lives that have become predictable. However, the author really permits little personal growth in her hypothetical life ��" fantasy does not suddenly become an actual life.

Keeping alive the fantasies and possibilities of teenage years seems to not have been totally harmless, having an impact on both maturity and troubling behavior for some. For example, the author reveals very early that the one person who claimed to be involved sexually with Nora had a fixation on younger girls on which he acted in later years.

The book is only thinly plotted. After the disappearance, a series of scenarios in no particular chronological order are presented that have some relevance to the general theme(s). For both the reader and the guys, of most interest is the psychological ramifications of keeping alive memories from one’s youth. The “we” voice employed by the author in some respects dilutes the experience ��" motivations and desires are more compelling in well-developed individuals. Overall, the author’s effortless writing keeps the story moving briskly and the interest level high. Presumably, many of us harbor the sorts of thoughts presented in this book and must deal with the inevitable pressures to reconcile with realities.
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Product Details

ISBN:
9780061996054
Author:
Pittard, Hannah
Publisher:
Ecco Press
Author:
Noh, Mi Young
Subject:
Psychological fiction
Subject:
Suburban life
Subject:
General
Subject:
General Fiction
Subject:
Literature-A to Z
Edition Description:
Hardcover
Publication Date:
20110131
Binding:
HARDCOVER
Grade Level:
General/trade
Language:
English
Pages:
256
Dimensions:
8 x 5.125 x 0.89 in 10.8 oz
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Related Subjects

Fiction and Poetry » Literature » A to Z
Languages » Foreign Languages » Spanish » Fiction and Poetry » Literature » A to Z

The Fates Will Find Their Way Sale Hardcover
0 stars - 0 reviews
$9.98 In Stock
Product details 256 pages Ecco - English 9780061996054 Reviews:
"Staff Pick" by ,

Told through melodic, purposeful prose from a first-person-plural perspective, Hannah Pittard's stunning debut novel is an eerie, perfectly pitched recounting of adolescence that skillfully captures the blurred line between the tangible and the imagined. Keep an eye on this writer.

by Megan
"Publishers Weekly Review" by , "Pittard leads the reader into a slew of possibilities spinning out from a 16-year-old girl's disappearance, in her intriguing, beguiling debut. After Nora Lindell goes missing on Halloween, stories about her disappearance multiply: she got into a car with an unknown man, she was seen at the airport, she simply walked away, she was abducted. Pittard dips into the points-of-view of various classmates to explore these possibilities and more. Perhaps Nora was murdered. One theory sends her to Arizona, where she raises twin daughters with a lover named Mundo, and another path leads her to a near-death experience in a cafe bombing in India. The story also outlines effects of the disappearance on Nora's family and classmates, who, even as they graduate, marry, and have children, never quite let go of Nora — possibly to avoid their own lives. Though the truth about Nora remains tantalizingly elusive — the reader is never quite sure what happened — the many possibilities are so captivating, and Pittard's prose so eloquent, that there's a far richer experience to be had in the chain of maybes and what-ifs than in nailing down the truth. (Feb.)" Publishers Weekly (Copyright PWyxz LLC)
"Review" by , "A debut novel sure to linger with readers...Though relatively brief, the novel has great depth, enhanced by Pittard’s precision of language. The result is a stimulating examination of loss, memory, history, and perception and how the past never leaves — indeed is the main factor in the present."
"Review" by , "The Fates Will Find Their Way is a bold, wise, magical, and authentic novel about youthful infatuation and its legacy. Hannah Pittard’s beautifully confident prose is sure to make readers look back on their own teenage years with fresh wonder."
"Review" by , "The tension builds throughout the book, keeping the reader eager to find out what happened... This debut from McSweeney's award winner Pittard is smart, eerie, and suspenseful and will appeal to fans of novels combining those elements."
"Review" by , "The Fates Will Find Their Way is...about the way our imaginations can carry us from a dispiriting selfishness to a nascent empathy, and the way we continue to inflict — or even just observe — pain until that empathy arrives."
"Synopsis" by , Reminiscent of The Virgin Suicides, an eerily evocative and masterfully crafted literary debut about a teenage girl who goes missing and the effect her disappearance has on the boys she grew up with
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