Before the House Burns

Before the House Burns Review

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Before the House Burns Feature

Set on Ireland's Atlantic coast, "Before the House Burns" is a tender, implosive first novel by an award-winning short story writer and poet. It concerns the lives of its three young narrators, children of a bereaved father and witnesses to a shared grief. This nuanced and heart-breaking account of one family's struggle - for work, shelter and happiness - enters the imagination through this braided, pitch-perfect tale of a family whose lives fracture around two tragic events. It is a story of what happens when self-sustenance turns to isolation, a story about the hard scrabble to find a home. Despite their sufferings, this is not yet another tale of an unhappy Irish childhood. What makes this novel unique is not only the calibre of the writing, but also its depiction of the love that binds the family together as they suffer blow after blow to their lives.

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Swamplandia! (Vintage Contemporaries)

Swamplandia! (Vintage Contemporaries) Review

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Swamplandia! (Vintage Contemporaries) Feature

From the celebrated twenty-nine-year-old author of the everywhere-heralded short-story collection St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves (“How I wish these were my own words, instead of the breakneck demon writer Karen Russell’s . . . Run for your life. This girl is on fire”—Los Angeles Times Book Review) comes a blazingly original debut novel that takes us back to the swamps of the Florida Everglades, and introduces us to Ava Bigtree, an unforgettable young heroine.

The Bigtree alligator-wrestling dynasty is in decline, and Swamplandia!, their island home and gator-wrestling theme park, formerly #1 in the region, is swiftly being encroached upon by a fearsome and sophisticated competitor called the World of Darkness. Ava’s mother, the park’s indomitable headliner, has just died; her sister, Ossie, has fallen in love with a spooky character known as the Dredgeman, who may or may not be an actual ghost; and her brilliant big brother, Kiwi, who dreams of becoming a scholar, has just defected to the World of Darkness in a last-ditch effort to keep their family business from going under. Ava’s father, affectionately known as Chief Bigtree, is AWOL; and that leaves Ava, a resourceful but terrified thirteen, to manage ninety-eight gators and the vast, inscrutable landscape of her own grief.

Against a backdrop of hauntingly fecund plant life animated by ancient lizards and lawless hungers, Karen Russell has written an utterly singular novel about a family’s struggle to stay afloat in a world that is inexorably sinking. An arrestingly beautiful and inventive work from a vibrant new voice in fiction.


From the Hardcover edition.

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Becoming Maren

Becoming Maren Review

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Becoming Maren Feature

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How John Became a Man (Life Story of a Motherless Boy)

How John Became a Man (Life Story of a Motherless Boy) Review

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How John Became a Man (Life Story of a Motherless Boy) Feature

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Persuasion (Norton Critical Editions)

Persuasion (Norton Critical Editions) Review

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Persuasion (Norton Critical Editions) Feature

The text of this Norton Critical Edition is that of the first edition (dated 1818 but probably issued in late 1817), which was published posthumously.

The editor has spelled out ampersands and made superscript letters lowercase.

The novel, which is fully annotated, is followed by the two canceled chapters that comprise Persuasion’s original ending.

"Backgrounds and Contexts" collects contemporary assessments of Jane Austen as well as materials relating to social issues of the period.

Included are an excerpt from William Hayley’s 1785 "Essay on Old Maids"; Austen’s letters to Fanny Knight, which reveal her skepticism about marriage as the key to happiness; Henry Austen’s memorial tribute to his famous sister; assessments by nineteenth-century critics Julia Kavanagh and Goldwin Smith, who saw Austen as an unassuming, sheltered, "feminine," rural writer; and the perspective of Austen’s biographer Geraldine Edith Mitten.

"Modern Critical Views" reflects a dramatic shift in the way that twentieth-century scholars view both Austen and Persuasion. Increasingly, the focus is on Austen's moral purposefulness and political acumen and on Persuasion's historical, social, and political implications.

A variety of perspectives are provided by A. Walton Litz, Marilyn Butler, Tony Tanner, Robert Hopkins, Ann W. Astell, Claudia L. Johnson, and Cheryl Ann Weissman.

A Selected Bibliography is also included.

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Invisible Ink: The Journey Beyond Words

Invisible Ink: The Journey Beyond Words Review

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Invisible Ink: The Journey Beyond Words Feature

As those who have lost a loved one know, it is not uncommon to suddenly sense that they are near. Whether through a particularly powerful dream or a whiff of their scent that comes from out of nowhere, many people have an unexplainable “knowing” that they have been visited by the spirit of their beloved parent, sibling, child or friend.

Even though millions of people have had what might be called a spiritual visitation, most of us are still reluctant to fully believe our loved ones are available to us, even after their death.

When her mother was diagnosed with cancer, author Kathy Curtis believed the journey they would take together as a result would be their last. After her death 3 months later, the final memories Curtis shared in letters to her mother were cathartic and healing, after which she put her pen down, thinking that was all she needed to write.

Then came the visitations. The first 3 were in the form of dreams that felt like more than dreams. In the early days after her mother’s death, Curtis longed for just one more hour with her to ease the ache her loss had created. The dreams gave her the sense that she really had seen her mother again, and that she could go forward with renewed energy to deal with her loss.

One night Curtis awakened to the smell of her mother’s perfume. It was so powerful that she got up and walked down the hall to see if it would go away. It stayed with her as she walked around the house and returned to her bedroom. Only after she crawled back into bed did the scent dissipate.

Other visitations came in the form of creatures such as cardinals and butterflies coming close enough to touch. In another experience, Curtis asked for her mother’s help finding a ring that had been lost for 1 ½ years, and within minutes, the ring appeared.

After ten years of observing these experiences and speaking with others about theirs, Curtis felt compelled to write a book that might give others permission to experience their loved ones’ visitations as the healing opportunities they can be. It is her belief that accepting these experiences as real can even begin to change our attitudes about death.

Through intimate letters Kathy Curtis wrote to her mother after her death, followed by her mother's “responses” 10 years later, the invisible ink that flows between them lets readers experience the ongoing spiritual nature of their mother-daughter relationship. This heartfelt glimpse into the journey of love, loss, grief and spiritual awakening that a mother and daughter shared is thought-provoking, comforting and inspiring.

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My Search for Meaning

My Search for Meaning Review

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My Search for Meaning Feature

My Search for Meaning is an intimate collection of memories of a child growing up first in an orphanage in Germany, then in Middle America. Abandoned by her mother – who escaped East Germany just as the Berlin Wall was being erected – the child finds herself alone in a hard-to-understand world that is itself undergoing great change. Against a pervasive backdrop of loneliness, institutional life and brutal betrayals, there is still the innocence and wonder of childhood and sudden, inexplicable joys.

A sensitive child in life without a protector learns to go on instinct. What informs instinct in this memoir is a seedling faith in the overall goodness of life, a belief that things will, with time and effort, work together for good. What begins as a search for answers becomes a journey of understanding. As the mystery unfolds a young woman emerges, forged from all she has endured but also from mercy and compassion and a deeply held conviction that each of us, at any moment, can transform our lives.

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