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Divisadero

By Michael Ondaatje

(19)

| Hardcover | 9780307266354

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Book Description

From the celebrated author of The English Patient and In the Skin of a Lion comes a remarkable new novel of intersecting lives that ranges across continents and time.

In the 1970s in Northern California, near Gold Rush country, a father and his teenage daughters, Anna and ClContinue

From the celebrated author of The English Patient and In the Skin of a Lion comes a remarkable new novel of intersecting lives that ranges across continents and time.

In the 1970s in Northern California, near Gold Rush country, a father and his teenage daughters, Anna and Claire, work their farm with the help of Coop, an enigmatic young man who makes his home with them. Theirs is a makeshift family, until it is riven by an incident of violence—of both hand and heart—that sets fire to the rest of their lives.

Divisadero takes us from the city of San Francisco to the raucous backrooms of Nevada’s casinos and eventually to the landscape of south-central France. It is here, outside a small rural village, that Anna becomes immersed in the life and the world of a writer from an earlier time—Lucien Segura. His compelling story, which has its beginnings at the turn of the century, circles around “the raw truth” of Anna’s own life, the one she’s left behind but can never truly leave. And as the narrative moves back and forth in time and place, we discover each of the characters managing to find some foothold in a present rough hewn from the past.  

Breathtakingly evoked and with unforgettable characters, Divisadero is a multilayered novel about passion, loss, and the unshakable past, about the often discordant demands of family, love, and memory. It is Michael Ondaatje’s most intimate and beautiful novel to date.

Critics

  • Divisadero

    California del Nord, anni Settanta. Anna ha sedici anni e vive insieme alla sorella adottiva e al padre nella fattoria di Petaluma. Non ha mai conosciuto la madre, morta di parto, e sin da piccola ha imparato a badare alla fattoria. Ad aiutarla c'è C ... (read full critics)

    Qlibri published on Tue, 23 Nov 2010

  • Decline and fall

    Divisadero by Michael Ondaatje Bloomsbury £17.99, pp288 There is a biblical quality to the stories to which Michael Ondaatje is drawn; they grow out of blood and earth. He has the voice for them: his sculpted, inevitable sentences seem made to be wri ... (read full critics)

    guardian.co.uk published on Sat, 25 Sep 2010

2 Reviews

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  • A tapestry of lives

    I love this book. It will open your heart with its slow working beauty. I have read the "English Patient" and "Anil's Ghost", so this makes my third novel by the Toronto writer. I have loved all of his works. They have a depth of character and of history you rarely find. You can tell he is also a p ... (continue)

    I love this book. It will open your heart with its slow working beauty. I have read the "English Patient" and "Anil's Ghost", so this makes my third novel by the Toronto writer. I have loved all of his works. They have a depth of character and of history you rarely find. You can tell he is also a poet, it comes through in the way he tells a story and more so in the way he understands the world. In Divisadero, the story starts in California, the pacing is fast, and each chapter you have a different main character or focus within the lives of the few main ones. These characters are often not returned to, so be prepared to like them and miss them later. They are related in various ways, but loosely. The themes to look for in Michael's work are family, love, and the repercussions of war. The theme that really gets me is one of infinite solitude, a separateness that does not dissolve even between loved ones. It is essentially the insurmountable space between each one of us, a space we must live with even when we are loved, because it is always there. Each character must make his or her own decisions and make peace with the past. The imagery of France haunts me, it is that lovely.

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    Leah said on May 23, 2010 | Add your feedback

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9780307266354 Hardcover -- $11.99 ebooks.com
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