Publisher, Blackstone Audio (July 6, 2010)

NOTE: Blackstone Audio VALUE / RETAIL EDITIONS are packaged in attractive, compact cardboard boxes, jewel cases, shrink-wrapped, or DVD cases with full-color art.

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On Oprah’s Summer Reading List for 2010

“An expertly crafted tale of love during wartime…Norman’s writing is effortless, and his plot is grand in scope but studded with moments of tenderness and intimacy that help crystallize the anxiety and weariness of life on the home front. That Norman is able to achieve so much in 250 pages is a testament to his mastery of the craft.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“[An] intricately beautiful story about love, jealousy, war, prejudice, survival and a library…His writing, sometimes described as quiet, can briefly lull you into thinking he’s not paying enough attention to his plot. Then, wham!”—Wall Street Journal

“Norman…scores again with this gripping account of a family ripped apart by obsession and murder…Norman has developed this brave, emotionally reticent man with great delicacy. It is extraordinary that a story which carries such a weight of sorrow is never depressing, but Norman the master craftsman pulls it off.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

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 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 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.

About the Author: HOWARD NORMAN is a three-time winner of National Endowment for the Arts fellowships and a winner of the Lannan Award for fiction. His novels The Northern Lights and The Bird Artist were nominated for National Book Awards. His books have been translated into twelve languages. He lives in Washington, D.C., and Vermont with his wife and daughter.