NOMINATING LIBRARY COMMENTS

This is a novel of romance and suspense. The story is told in the third person, but from the main character’s viewpoint. The main character, Ann Grant Lord, is aged 65, and dying of cancer. The story switches from her terminally ill in bed with family and friends around her, to her remembering, in the intensity of a fever-dream, a weekend at a friend’s wedding where she met the love of her life. Other important events of her life, including her three marriages and the death of her son are remembered in a much more detached way. From what we are told, Ann would be considered a correct and detached person. The author suggests that the disappointments of that weekend, her husbands and the death of her son have made her that way. Much of the action around the wedding feast and the affair takes place in New England. In describing the wedding, we learn of the upper class American manners in the 1950’s. The story also moves to Manhattan, Connecticut, Provence and Florence, so we get a sense of all these places. Because the story is told through the main character, the reader can only experience the other characters as described by the main character, therefore you cannot really appraise the characters. However one can feel sympathy for the main character, and her disappointments in life. The other main character, her lover, is experienced through her in a very romantic way. I found this a moving and beautifully detailed book. I loved the romantic dreamlike quality of the book, and I think it must be a serious contender for the prize. (Member of the Raheny Library Reading Group)

This is a really memorable novel, beautifully written and perfectly paced. Sixty-four year old Ann Lord is terminally ill. As she lies in bed awaiting death she relives a romance she has had forty years before. While attending a friend’s wedding, she met and fell in love with Dr. Harris Arden. He was already engaged to be married and consequently their intense love affair ceased after a weekend of passion and tragedy. The dying woman is visited by her children born of three different fathers, and throughout the novel the reader is fed snippets of memory recall which when pieced together amount to a remarkable story of emotional loss and regret. Ms. Minot uses to great effect broken sentences and an economy of words to capture the dream like quality of Ann Lord’s barely conscious state of mind. It is a story of hidden truths and a quiet acceptance of what life has meted out. I would hope that this work would be a strong contender for the IMPAC prize.
(Member of Raheny Library Reading Group)