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More copies of this ISBN:This title in other formats:What You Have Leftby Will Allison
Synopses & ReviewsPublisher Comments:What You Have Left is an unforgettable story of love, loss, and, most of all, longing. In 1976, on the day of his wife's funeral, Wylie Greer drops off his five-year-old daughter, Holly, at his father-in-law's dairy farm on the outskirts of Columbia, South Carolina. Wylie tells her he just needs a little time to clear his head, but thirty years pass before Holly sees her father again — "time I spent wondering what I'd done to make him leave," she says, "and what I could do to make him come back." What You Have Left is about a father and daughter trying to make their way back to one another across decades of uncertainty and ambivalence — all the while hoping to discover that what they have left is worth salvaging. It's also the story of a grandfather bent on suicide, a pioneering female NASCAR driver, a heartbroken amnesiac, a video poker junkie, and assorted other liars, cheaters, and lovers who, despite their best intentions, never quite live up to their own expectations. Are we doomed to repeat our parents' mistakes? Can lies save love instead of destroying it? Is letting go the same as giving up? Shot through with sly humor and a knowing sympathy for human weakness, What You Have Left takes up these and other questions as it examines the weight of history, the nature of loss, and the possibility of forgiveness. Making use of bold shifts in viewpoint and time, Allison proves a brilliant observer of the emotional legacies handed down from parent to child and the ways loss defines us. This stunning debut brims with an affection for humanity exactly as it is — in all its ignorance and awareness, its swagger and humility, its despair and hope. Review:"Though the beautifully drawn characters of What You Have Left do not understand how their lives draft, fender to bumper, upon each other, the reader can only sit back wondering whether clear driving's ahead, or a seemingly inevitable disaster. This is a masterpiece in writing, and in understanding Nature versus Nurture. We understand that Holly's her mother and father's child whether she wants to be or not. Brutally hilarious and mesmerically tragic, What You Have Left might be the perfect novel." -- George Singleton, author of Drowning in Gruel Review:"Mr. Allison's novel is plainspoken and eloquent in the way that So Long, See You Tomorrow is plainspoken and eloquent. It's worked up right out of the American grain and speaks to me, direct and true." -- Richard Ford Review:"Allison...has a gift for storytelling. He sets his first novel in South Carolina; his characters teeter between mistakes and redemption." — The Charlotte Observer Review:"Will Allison's What You Have Left is written with such vitality, such delicate intensity and clarity of feeling that I wanted it never to end. A story of fast cars and colliding emotions, it runs quicker than a dirt-track car on a Saturday night. The characters are heartbreaking, and absolutely real — good people spinning out of control." -- Mark Childress, author of One Mississippi Review:"The clarity of Will Allison's prose underscores the small, crucial moments when the fate of human beings is decided, on the subtle abacus of hope and accommodation, betrayal and love. He perfectly captures the texture of unstylized American lives." -- Janet Fitch, author of White Oleander and Paint it Black Review:"Allison's quiet prose gets at a mother's raw nerve, a father's desperate evasions, the daredevil rage of an abandoned daughter, and the anxiety of a husband curbing his own destructive impulses as he gauges the risks of love." — O, the Oprah Magazine Synopsis:This powerful first novel, shot through with sly humor and a knowing sympathy for human weakness, examines the weight of history, the nature of loss, and the possibility of forgiveness. Table of ContentsContents Chapter One 1991 Holly Chapter Two 1971 Wylie Chapter Three 1991 Lyle Chapter Four 1970 Wylie Chapter Five 1996 Holly Chapter Six 2001 Lyle Chapter Seven 1979 Wylie Chapter Eight 2007 Holly What Our Readers Are SayingBe the first to add a comment for a chance to win!Product Details
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