Howard Norman, widely regarded as one of this country's finest
novelists, returns to the mesmerizing fictional terrain of his
major books--"The Bird Artist," "The Museum Guard," and "The
Haunting of L"--in this erotically charged and morally complex
story.
Seventeen-year-old Wyatt Hillyer is suddenly orphaned when his
parents, within hours of each other, jump off two different
bridges--the result of their separate involvements with the same
compelling neighbor, a Halifax switchboard operator and aspiring
actress. The suicides cause Wyatt to move to small-town Middle
Economy to live with his uncle, aunt, and ravishing cousin
Tilda.
Setting in motion the novel's chain of life-altering passions
and the wartime perfidy at its core is the arrival of the German
student Hans Mohring, carrying only a satchel. Actual historical
incidents--including a German U-boat's sinking of the Nova
Scotia-Newfoundland ferry "Caribou," on which Aunt Constance
Hillyer might or might not be traveling--lend intense narrative
power to Norman's uncannily layered story.
Wyatt's account of the astonishing--not least to him-- events
leading up to his fathering of a beloved daughter spills out
twenty-one years later. It's a confession that speaks profoundly of
the mysteries of human character in wartime and is directed, with
both despair and hope, to an audience of one.
An utterly stirring novel. This is Howard Norman at his
celebrated best.
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