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About This Book
ISBN13: 9780316735735 |
Review-a-Day (What is Review-a-Day?)
"Enjoying a novel by Anita Shreve puts me in a similarly defensive mood....To the extent that that's a put-down, it's unfortunate because what's remarkable about her best work is the way she hovers so tantalizingly between serious history and syrupy romance — between the portrayal of making textiles in New Hampshire and heaving breasts in red satin. Both lines of inquiry are fascinating, of course, but no one manages to straddle them as successfully as Shreve. Admittedly, there are missteps now and then, but usually, as in her new novel, she gets it just right." Ron Charles, The Christian Science Monitor (read the entire CSM review)
Synopses & Reviews
Publisher Comments:
Etna Bliss has just moved to the New England town where her uncle teaches college when her life is transformed in a single stroke. She is dining in a hotel downtown when a fire forces her to escape to the snowy streets outside. Amid the smoke and chaos of that night she is glimpsed, standing under a streetlight, by a man who was dining in the same room — a man who is so overwhelmed by the sight of her that he rebuilds his life around a single goal: to marry Etna Bliss.
That man is Nicholas Van Tassel, and All He Ever Wanted is his account of how two lives changed from that tumultuous night forward. A proud and orderly man, Van Tassel is ill equipped to deal with the ferocity of love. But he is determined to have Etna no matter what the cost. Riding a train south many years later, he unwinds his memories of the years that followed and struggles to understand the mystery his life became on that night.
This is no ordinary tale of obsession. All He Ever Wanted is a story about different kinds of love, different ideas of what love is, and how lives can be strained to breaking over those differences. It is a powerful exploration of the music and silences of family life, the unhinging forces of desire, the wrenching power of secrets unrevealed, and the bewildering territories of betrayal and loss. Written with the maturity, beauty, intelligence, and grace that are Anita Shreve's hallmarks, All He Ever Wanted is a story that powerfully conjures another time and place — peopled by unforgettable characters as real as the emotions that bring them together.
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About the Author
What Our Readers Are Saying
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Average customer rating based on 1 comment:
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Armine Petrossian, June 11, 2007 (view all comments by Armine Petrossian)
Delighted to have read a book by a woman, my contemporary, and presented in the first voice of a man from more than a century ago. One would expect the actual author?s image to lurk behind the narrative on every page of the book. But no such thing happens. Quite to the contrary: one gets a strong impression of reading a book written at the time of the events described and by a person a contemporary of the characters. Such is the complete transformation that talented writhers undergo with every book they write. And that transformation, among other things, is the best indicator of a writer?s genuine talent.
Product Details
- ISBN:
- 9780316735735
- Author:
- Publisher:
- Back Bay Books
- Editor:
- Pietsch, Michael
- Subject:
- General
- Subject:
- Historical - General
- Edition Description:
- Back Bay Trade
- Publication Date:
- January 2004
- Binding:
- Paperback
- Language:
- English
- Pages:
- 336
- Dimensions:
- 8.10x5.56x.88 in. .68 lbs.
