Results by title
4 books match the query 'Widowers'
A Century of November
A NovelW. D. Wetherell
University of Michigan Press, 2009
A Century of November is the tale of Charles Marden, an apple grower and judge who sets off from his Vancouver Island home on an impulsive journey to Belgium, where his son, an Allied soldier in the First World War, has just died in battle at the very end of the war. Marden's single-minded mission: finding the exact spot where his son was killed.
Across western Canada the Spanish flu rages - the very disease that claimed Marden's wife three weeks earlier. Upon arriving in England, he learns that his son left behind a pregnant girlfriend. Soon his search widens to include locating the girl, too. Nearing the front lines, Marden seems to descend into the fires of hell as he navigates the mine-strewn killing fields of the trenches, still reeking with poison gas. Will he find the girl, and will he find an answer to the forces that drove him halfway around the world?
Author W. D. Wetherell has given us a novel of terrifying beauty, one that seems to occupy the place between waking and dreams. Its haunting words will linger long after the book is shut.
Across western Canada the Spanish flu rages - the very disease that claimed Marden's wife three weeks earlier. Upon arriving in England, he learns that his son left behind a pregnant girlfriend. Soon his search widens to include locating the girl, too. Nearing the front lines, Marden seems to descend into the fires of hell as he navigates the mine-strewn killing fields of the trenches, still reeking with poison gas. Will he find the girl, and will he find an answer to the forces that drove him halfway around the world?
Author W. D. Wetherell has given us a novel of terrifying beauty, one that seems to occupy the place between waking and dreams. Its haunting words will linger long after the book is shut.
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Bruges-la-Morte
Georges Rodenbach
University of Scranton Press, 2007
Bruges-la-Morte is the story of one man’s obsession with his dead wife and his soul’s struggle between an alluring young dancer—his late wife’s double—and the beautiful, melancholy city of Bruges, whose moody atmosphere mirrors his mourning. This hallmark of Belgian symbolist literature, first translated into English by Philip Mosley to great acclaim twenty years ago, is now back in print for the next generation of English readers to discover.
With penetrating psychological force and richly metaphorical language, Bruges-la-Morte draws a haunting picture of love, grief, and murder in what has become a “dead city,” severely Catholic and once proud. The source of the famous opera Die tote Stadt and endless inspiration for Belgian and French artists, this novella will enthrall both the imaginations and heartstrings of an Anglophile audience.
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Seed
A NovelStanley Crawford
University of Alabama Press, 2015
Seed is the story of Bill Starr’s final days. Childless but with a lifetime’s worth of possessions and a nearly infinite web of extended family, Bill endeavors to empty his house completely before he dies by summoning distant relatives to claim their inheritance. Many of his letters go unanswered, but those who do appear show up only to find that their reward is often much less valuable than they might expect.
What they get instead are Bill’s memories, made vivid by each item from the past, memories that are more exotic and curious than the lives currently lived by his young relatives.
Accompanied by his housekeeper, Ramona, and his young gardener, Jonathan, Bill is a somewhat cantankerous, wildly intelligent, and often forgetful man who recalls and speaks to his passed wife, often thinking that she's not dead. His unwillingness to recognize what has happened to her and to give away his only possession of any value, a 1937 Pierce-Arrow automobile that they bought together, becomes the measure of his grief and of his love in this profoundly funny novel that faces death and love sincerely.
What they get instead are Bill’s memories, made vivid by each item from the past, memories that are more exotic and curious than the lives currently lived by his young relatives.
Accompanied by his housekeeper, Ramona, and his young gardener, Jonathan, Bill is a somewhat cantankerous, wildly intelligent, and often forgetful man who recalls and speaks to his passed wife, often thinking that she's not dead. His unwillingness to recognize what has happened to her and to give away his only possession of any value, a 1937 Pierce-Arrow automobile that they bought together, becomes the measure of his grief and of his love in this profoundly funny novel that faces death and love sincerely.
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The Good Oak
Martin Etchart
University of Nevada Press, 2005
Thirteen-year-old Matt Echbar is angry at the world. His widowed father is too busy for him, and his grandfather is an embarrassment, an unschooled Basque shepherd whose language and customs are completely alien to Matt’s all-American lifestyle. Things get worse when the grandfather steals a flock of sheep and dragoons Matt into helping him drive them to a secret camp in the Arizona mountains. The ensuing adventure is one of the most compelling and delightful coming-of-age novels in recent fiction. As Matt and his aitatxi, accompanied by their two faithful sheepdogs, drive the flock across the burgeoning suburbs of Phoenix and into the remote mountains, the boy learns the ancient skills of the sheepherder and discovers the unexpected wisdom that has given his Old Country grandfather the strength and patience of a sturdy oak. By the time the journey reaches its fateful conclusion, Matt has developed a new bond with the old man and has learned that true manhood includes accepting one’s heritage.
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