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Library | Call Number | Status |
|---|---|---|
Searching... McMinnville Public Library | Rice, L. | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
Is there any mystery greater than those we love the most?
In this remarkable collaboration, New York Times bestselling author Luanne Rice and Joseph Monninger combine their unique talents to create a powerfully moving novel of an estranged husband and wife through a series of searching, intimate letters. By way of a correspondence so achingly real you'll forget it's fiction, they trace the history of a love affair and of a family before, and after, the moment that changed the course of two people's journey forever.
Sam and Hadley West are both trying in their own ways to survive after the unthinkable loss of their only son in Alaska. For Sam, a sports journalist, acceptance means an arduous trek by dogsled across the bleak and beautiful arctic wilderness to find the place where Paul died. For Hadley, it means renting a benignly haunted, salt-soaked cottage off the Maine coast where she begins to paint again.
Now, at opposite ends of the country, waiting for their divorce to be finalized, they begin to exchange letters by post, missives filled with longing and truths they've never before voiced, as they recall their marriage--its magic moments and its challenges--and begin to rediscover the reasons they fell in love in the first place.
As Sam risks his life to reach the remote crash site, Hadley begins an equally hazardous inner journey to a rendezvous with the mad grief of a mother's heart. At the place where all else is lost, they will meet again....
Author Notes
Novelist Luanne Rice was born in Old Lyme, Connecticut on September 25, 1955. She has written over twenty books and her stories, such as Home Fires and Cloud Nine, depict average people in emotionally complex situations. Many of her novels have been adapted into TV movies including Crazy in Love (1992) which starred Holly Hunter, Bill Pullman and Gena Rowlands, and Blue Moon (1999) which starred Sharon Lawrence, Kim Hunter and Richard Kiley. She currently splits her time between New York City and Old Lyme, Connecticut.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
The bestselling Rice teams up with Monninger in this epistolary novel of an unraveling marriage. Sam and Hadley West separated following the death of their grown son, Paul. Sam is in Laika Star, Alaska, where he is arranging to travel via dog sled to the site where Paul died in a plane crash. Hadley, meanwhile, has moved to an island off the coast of Maine and thinks Sam's trip is a bad idea. Both Sam and Hadley initially come off as unsympathetic (he too self-centered, she too bitter and jaded), but as the letters pile up and they delve deeper into their anguish while sorting out "what [their] marriage means or how it should end," they endear themselves to the reader. The book is unabashedly melodramatic, but readers into the sappy will be reaching for a Kleenex by the end. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
A husband and wife on the cusp of dissolving their marriage write back and forth about their personal journeys to rediscover themselves as they figure out what went wrong. Sam is in Alaska on a dogsled trip to the remote site of their son's plane crash, while Hadley escapes to an isolated island in Maine. Both recognize the pain and mistakes they made before and after their son's tragic death as they communicate eloquently in their letters. With each character and each author providing vivid descriptions of his and her surroundings and intense emotions, it's hard for the reader to remember that she is reading fiction and not eavesdropping on personal correspondence saturated with sadness and love. As Sam and Hadley write, the hope that they may find a way back to each other before it is too late ascends. Rice and Monninger beautifully convey love and hope from two different spheres of reference, taking the reader on a journey of discovery that celebrates the beauty of letter writing, an art fast disappearing in an age of instant communication.--Engelmann, Patty Copyright 2008 Booklist
Library Journal Review
In this epistolary novel by the popular Rice (Last Kiss) and her friend Monninger (Home Waters), Sam West dogsleds across Alaska to the site of the plane crash that killed his only child, Paul, three years earlier. Meanwhile, Sam's wife, Hadley, rents a cabin off the coast of Maine to rekindle her passion for art. Paul had dropped out of Amherst College and was on his way to teach in a remote Inuit village when he died. His death signaled the last breath of the Wests' marriage as well. Or had it been dying long before their son's demise? Sam initiates the correspondence, but soon each spouse comes to view it as a means of being truly honest one last time before their divorce becomes final. As Sam writes, "Something has changed with us.... It makes no sense to name it, though. Not yet. I trust these letters." However Sam's journey alters course and the couple's relationship remodels itself, readers will trust in the privilege of going along for the ride. Though the segmentation of voices leaves one less engaged than one might wish, this is still a satisfying read. Recommended for public libraries. [Prepub Alert, LJ 6/1/08.]--Bette-Lee Fox, Library Journal (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.