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Title details for The Story of a Marriage by Andrew Sean Greer - Wait list

The Story of a Marriage

by Andrew Sean Greer
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From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Less. 'A riveting and fascinating novel full of stunning observations and brilliant moments of truth and sympathy.' Colm Tóibín It is 1953, and in San Francisco Pearlie, a dutiful housewife, finds herself caring for both her husband's fragile health and her polio-afflicted son. Then one morning someone from her husband's past appears on their doorstep. His arrival throws all the certainties by which Pearlie has lived into doubt, and is brought face to face with the desperate measures people are prepared to take to escape the confines of their lives.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    September 4, 2008

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9780571246090

    • EPUB ebook

      • ISBN: 9780571246090
      • File size: 340 KB

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from January 28, 2008
      As he demonstrated in the imaginative The Confessions of Max Tivoli
      , Greer can spin a touching narrative based on an intriguing premise. Even a diligent reader will be surprised by the revelations twisting through this novel and will probably turn back to the beginning pages to find the oblique hints hidden in Greer's crystalline prose. In San Francisco in 1953, narrator Pearlie relates the circumstances of her marriage to Holland Cook, her childhood sweetheart. Pearlie's sacrifices for Holland begin when they are teenagers and continue when the two reunite a few years later, marry and have an adored son. The reappearance in Holland's life of his former boss and lover, Buzz Drumer, propels them into a triangular relationship of agonizing decisions. Greer expertly uses his setting as historical and cultural counterpoint to a story that hinges on racial and sexual issues and a climate of fear and repression. Though some readers may find it overly sentimental, this is a sensitive exploration of the secrets hidden even in intimate relationships, a poignant account of people helpless in the throes of passion and an affirmation of the strength of the human spirit.

    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from June 30, 2008
      In this sad but beautiful tale of love, marriage and the limited perspective granted humans, Greer reveals how shocking events are needed to pitch people beyond their one-dimensional views of the world. Living in San Francisco in the mid-1950s, Pearlie learns that she does not know nearly as much about her husband as she once thought when an old friend of his appears at their door one day. S. Epatha Merkerson establishes a strong vocal persona in this first-person narrative and completely embodies Pearlie with a soft, lightly raspy and lilting voice that proves hypnotic. She executes other vocal characters ranging from a young child to some elderly aunts with believable inflection and subtlety. Merkerson's nuance and projection inject character elements in Pearlie that while not present in the beginning of the novel come to fruition later on, thus performing the intriguing feat of vocal foreshadowing. A Farrar, Straus & Giroux hardcover (Reviews, Jan. 28).

Formats

  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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