Synopses & Reviews
From the acclaimed author of the 2007
New York Times Notable Book
Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name comes a stunning novel about the love between husbands and wives, mothers and children.
Twenty-eight years ago, Peter and Yvonne honeymooned in the beautiful coastal village of Datça, Turkey. Now Yvonne is a widow, her twin children grown. Hoping to immerse herself in memories of a happier time — as well as sand and sea— Yvonne returns to Datça. But her plans for a restorative week in Turkey are quickly complicated. Instead of comforting her, her memories begin to trouble her. Her vacation rental's landlord and his bold, intriguing wife — who share a curious marital arrangement — become constant uninvited visitors, in and out of the house.
Overwhelmed by the past and unexpectedly dislocated by the environment, Yvonne clings to a newfound friendship with Ahmet, a local boy who makes his living as a shell collector. With Ahmet as her guide, Yvonne gains new insight into the lives of her own adult children, and she finally begins to enjoy the shimmering sea and relaxed pace of the Turkish coast. But a devastating accident upends her delicate peace and throws her life into chaos — and her sense of self into turmoil.
With the crystalline voice and psychological nuance for which her work has been so celebrated, Vendela Vida has crafted another unforgettable heroine in a stunningly beautiful and mysterious landscape.
Review
"An elegant consideration of how death and distance tightens human connections — a big theme that Vida addresses with sure-footedness and charm." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"Vida creates an atmosphere at once molten and chilling as she deftly exposes the wounding reverberations of timeless conflicts between men and women, parents and children, East and West, appearance and truth." Booklist
Review
"Vendela Vida has written a riveting and suspenseful novel about an American woman’s voyage to self-discovery." Joyce Carol Oates
Review
"Stunning. A masterful meditation on grief and love. The Lovers is a sensational novel from one of our finest writers at the height of her craft." Stephen Elliott, author of The Adderall Diaries
Review
"Haunting....Vida, a co-founder and co-editor of literary magazine the Believer, has a gift for probing the workings of memory." Time Out New York
Synopsis
"Vendela Vida has written a riveting and suspenseful novel about an American woman's voyage to self-discovery."
--Joyce Carol Oates
"Stunning. A masterful meditation on grief and love.
The Lovers is a sensational novel from one of our finest writers at the height of her craft."
--Stephen Elliott, author of
The Adderall Diaries
In 2007, Vendela Vida's novel
Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name was a
New York Times Notable Book of the Year. With her new novel,
The Lovers, former Kate Chopin Writing Award winner Vida tells a powerful and beautiful tale of a widow returning alone to the site of her honeymoon in Turkey, and her subsequent journeys through her past and her present.
Synopsis
From the author of Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name comes a stunning novel about the love between husbands and wives, mothers and children.
Synopsis
“Vendela Vida has written a riveting and suspenseful novel about an American womans voyage to self-discovery.”
—Joyce Carol Oates
“Stunning. A masterful meditation on grief and love. The Lovers is a sensational novel from one of our finest writers at the height of her craft.”
—Stephen Elliott, author of The Adderall Diaries
In 2007, Vendela Vidas novel Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. With her new novel, The Lovers, former Kate Chopin Writing Award winner Vida tells a powerful and beautiful tale of a widow returning alone to the site of her honeymoon in Turkey, and her subsequent journeys through her past and her present.
About the Author
Vendela Vida is the author of And Now You Can Go and Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name, both of which were New York Times Notable Books of the Year. She is a founding co-editor of the Believer magazine, and the editor of The Believer Book of Writers Talking to Writers. She lives in Northern California with her husband and children.