Synopses & Reviews
The bestselling final novel by a writer of incomparable range, power, and achievement, a three-time winner of the National Book Award.
Peter Matthiessen was a literary legend, the author of more than thirty acclaimed books. In this, his final novel, he confronts the legacy of evil, and our unquenchable desire to wrest good from it.
One week in late autumn of 1996, a group gathers at the site of a former death camp. They offer prayer at the crematoria and meditate in all weathers on the selection platform. They eat and sleep in the sparse quarters of the Nazi officers who, half a century before, sent more than a million Jews in this camp to their deaths. Clements Olin has joined them, in order to complete his research on the strange suicide of a survivor. As the days pass, tensions both political and personal surface among the participants, stripping away any easy pretense to resolution or healing. Caught in the grip of emotions and impulses of bewildering intensity, Olin is forced to abandon his observers role and to bear witness, not only to his familys ambiguous history but to his own.
Profoundly thought-provoking, In Paradise is a fitting coda to the luminous career of a writer who was for all readers. He was for the world” (National Geographic).
Review
Praise for
Shadow Country "Not just a tour de force in its stylistic range, but a great American novel, as powerful a reading experience as nearly any in our literature."—Michael Dirda, New York Review of Books
"Masterly."—The New York Times
"Magnificent and capacious… a breathtaking saga."—Los Angeles Times
Review
Praise for IN PARADISE
"Matthiessen…ponders Auschwitz decades after the Holocaust, in a novel thats philosophical, mordant and surprisingly romantic…An admirable…study of the meaning of survivorship." -Kirkus Reviews
Review
Praise for IN PARADISE
“The conflict between the drama of the self and its surrender in the shadow of the Holocaust is Matthiessen's bold subject...powerful.”
-New York Review of Books
“Matthiessen can write with ecstatic beauty… In his new novel, In Paradise, he takes what may be his deepest look yet into the abyss…Profound and fiercely fresh.”
-Tampa Bay Times
“Contains some of the most frightening and passionate writing of Matthiessens long career … With In Paradise, Peter Matthiessen has created philosophical and moral cacophony of lasting worth and, indeed, of a strange power. It belongs on the shelf beside At Play in the Fields of the Lord, Far Tortuga, and Shadow Country. Of how many books can that be said?”
-Open Letters Monthly
“The two-time National Book Award-winner doesnt shy away from boldly tackling the most profound of subjects… Matthiessen expertly raises the challenges and the difficulties inherent in addressing this subject matter, proving…that the creation of art “is the only path that might lead toward the apprehension of that ultimate evil . . . [that] the only way to understand such evil is to reimagine it.” -Booklist (starred review)
"Not a mere recounting but a persuasive meditation on Auschwitzs history and mythology...Matthiessen uses scenes of confrontation, recollection, bitterness, and self-examination to trace aspects of culture that led to the Holocaust and that still reverberate today."
-Library Journal (starred review)
"Matthiessen…ponders Auschwitz decades after the Holocaust, in a novel thats philosophical, mordant and surprisingly romantic…An admirable…study of the meaning of survivorship." -Kirkus Reviews
Review
Praise for Peter Matthiessen:
“You could well school yourself as a young American writer, in the early 21st century, by reading and then rereading the works of Peter Matthiessen. But of course he wasn't just a writer's writer; he was for all readers. He was for the world.” --National Geographic
“Matthiessen was unique in our literature, a descendant of Melville and Dostoyevsky who chronicled the heart of darkness at the center of the American fever dream. … The loss to American letters is immeasurable.” -- LA Review of Books
Praise for IN PARADISE:
“Matthiessens descriptions are poetic and scarifying…he creates indelible vignettes about what remains and what took place here. Like the rest of Matthiessens vast body of work, “In Paradise” leads us into questions that define our most profound mysteries.” -The Washington Post
“The beauty of [In Paradise] comes in [Matthiessens] powerful descriptions. With his command of the language, he can add something new and profound to that vast library of Holocaust literature. In Paradise allows Peter Matthiessen to once again demonstrate that he remains one of our most powerful writers.”-The Miami Herald
“The conflict between the drama of the self and its surrender in the shadow of the Holocaust is Matthiessen's bold subject...powerful.” -New York Review of Books
“Peter Matthiessen's In Paradise is a deeply intelligent study of Holocaust remembrance…bleakly funny… [and] eloquent” -The Wall Street Journal
“A fitting coda to [Matthiessens] career… Where better to look for some sort of human essence than in a landscape that embodies us at our worst?...This is the key message of Matthiessens life and writing -- that we are intricate, thorny, inconsistent, that the lines between good and bad blur within us, that we are capable of anything. The only choice is to remain conscious, to engage with openness.” -Los Angeles Times
“Written with a young mans energy, In Paradise possesses an old mans wisdom, which eschews the presumptions of age and the easy attainment of certitude." -The Daily Beast
“In Paradise is a fitting final addition to Matthiessen's oeuvre, in that it combines moral seriousness and imagination grounded in the world with elegance of expression and a willingness to take risk.” - National Geographic
“[In Paradise] … provides rare insight into the dark magnetism of a brutal landmark. What drives a survivor to return? What inspires conflicted visitors to join hands in spontaneous dancing? Matthiessens courage and clarity in addressing this topic [were] signal virtues of his career.” -Newsday
“Underpinned by an ambitious, near audacious, storyline… Matthiessen proceeds to set out his fictional stall in deftly assured fashion….[He] combines tactical restraint with lucid, compelling yet almost conversational prose. He has an ability to render a character in a detail or two…All of this craft combines to make much of In Paradise read like a masterclass in fiction…stunning.” -The Irish Times
“Affecting and powerful… In Paradise gets at the heart of the defining tragic enigma of the 20th century… [a] complex and worthy adieu.” -Jane Smiley, The Guardian
“A moving valedictory for one of Americas most wide-ranging and poetical writers… Matthiessens novel embraces humanitys endless capacity to heal and reinvent itself.” - Financial Times
“In Paradise is…contemplative and moving, and in its haunting story of Holocaust survivors who revisit Auschwitz, we find one of the last centurys greatest authors penning a book worthy of his legacy.” -Grantland
“Matthiessens writing flexes the same kind of muscularity as others of his generation—Vonnegut, Styron, Doctorow—but his devotion to Zen Buddhism results in a spiritual journey thats palatable even to the non-spiritual… [his characters] are fully realized people, and within them are the kernels of horror and joy shared by all of humanity” -A.V. Club
“Matthiessen can write with ecstatic beauty… In his new novel, In Paradise, he takes what may be his deepest look yet into the abyss…Profound and fiercely fresh.”-Tampa Bay Times
"An ambitious tale that tries to do nothing less than achieve some understanding of 20th century Europes defining event, the Holocaust.”-Buffalo News
“An eloquently written and thought-provoking novel… In Paradise demonstrates that Peter Matthiessen remained a vital part of Americas contemporary literary scene, an unflinching original who continued to write provocative narratives.” -Counterpunch
“Short and austere… Clements story and those of the others are anguished inquiries, harrowing reassessments and attempts — emotional, artistic and spiritual — to grasp the ungraspable.” -Minneapolis Star Tribune
“[In Paradise] deftly and ruthlessly pursues the battles that we face, both individually and also in dialogue with others, when we try to engage with horrors that can never be named.”-The Jewish Book Council
“An earnest, informed, often insightful and…subtle novel.” -Christian Science Monitor
“Contains some of the most frightening and passionate writing of Matthiessens long career … With In Paradise, Peter Matthiessen has created philosophical and moral cacophony of lasting worth and, indeed, of a strange power. It belongs on the shelf beside At Play in the Fields of the Lord, Far Tortuga, and Shadow Country. Of how many books can that be said?”-Open Letters Monthly
“The two-time National Book Award-winner doesnt shy away from boldly tackling the most profound of subjects… Matthiessen expertly raises the challenges and the difficulties inherent in addressing this subject matter, proving…that the creation of art “is the only path that might lead toward the apprehension of that ultimate evil . . . [that] the only way to understand such evil is to reimagine it.” -Booklist (starred review)
"Not a mere recounting but a persuasive meditation on Auschwitzs history and mythology...Matthiessen uses scenes of confrontation, recollection, bitterness, and self-examination to trace aspects of culture that led to the Holocaust and that still reverberate today."
-Library Journal (starred review)
"Matthiessen…ponders Auschwitz decades after the Holocaust, in a novel thats philosophical, mordant and surprisingly romantic…An admirable…study of the meaning of survivorship." -Kirkus Reviews
Review
Praise for In Paradise
“Poetic and scarifying…Like the rest of Matthiessens vast body of work, In Paradise leads us into questions that define our most profound mysteries.” —The Washington Post
“The conflict between the drama of the self and its surrender in the shadow of the Holocaust is Matthiessens bold subject…Powerful.” —The New York Review of Books
“A deeply intelligent study of Holocaust remembrance…bleakly funny…[and] eloquent.” —The Wall Street Journal
Synopsis
A profoundly searching new novel by a writer of incomparable range, power, and achievement.
In the winter of 1996, more than a hundred women and men of diverse nationality, background, and belief gather at the site of a former concentration camp for an unprecedented purpose: a weeklong retreat during which they will offer prayer and witness at the crematoria and meditate in all weathers on the selection platform, while eating and sleeping in the quarters of the Nazi officers who, half a century before, sent more than a million Jews to their deaths. Clements Olin, an American academic of Polish descent, has come along, ostensibly to complete research on the death of a survivor, even as he questions what a non-Jew can contribute to the understanding of so monstrous a catastrophe. As the days pass, tensions, both political and personal, surface among the participants, stripping away any easy pretense to healing or closure. Finding himself in the grip of emotions and impulses of bewildering intensity, Olin is forced to abandon his observers role and to embrace a history his family has long suppressedand with it the yearnings and contradictions of being fully alive.
In Paradise is a brave and deeply thought-provoking novel by one of our most stunningly accomplished writers.
About the Author
Peter Matthiessen was a three-time National Book Award winner (twice in two nonfiction categories for
The Snow Leopard, published in 1978, and again in fiction in 2008 for
Shadow Country) and the author of more than thirty books, as well as a world renowned naturalist, explorer, and activist. A cofounder of the
Paris Review, he was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and a recipient of its William Dean Howells Award, a State Author of New York, and a recipient of the Heinz Award in the Arts and Humanities, among many other honors. A longtime student of Zen Buddhism, Matthiessen eventually became a priest of the White Plum Asanga. He lived for more than 60 years on the South Fork of Long Island, where he worked as a commercial fisherman in his twenties and died on April 5, 2014.