The Distance from Normandy: A Novel - Hardcover

Hull, Jonathan

 
9780312314118: The Distance from Normandy: A Novel
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0312314116 ISBN 13: 9780312314118
Verlag: St. Martin's Press, 2003

Inhaltsangabe


Mead parachuted into Normandy on D-Day and fought his way to Germany, through some of the most brutal violence of World War II. But his most difficult battle was lost years later, when his beloved wife Sophie succumbed to cancer. Since then, he has waged a private war against both loneliness and the terrible memory of a day in 1945 that went horribly wrong-and has haunted him ever since.

His grandson Andrew, a scared and angry high school sophomore, has been expelled and is heading down a path of self-destruction. Mead agrees to take the boy in for three weeks, to set him right. At first, the two circle warily around each other, finding little in common. Then Andrew befriends a widow named Evelyn, and Mead busies himself fending off the match, even as he feels a reluctant attraction to this cheerful woman who seems to understand his grandson.

One afternoon, rummaging through the garage, Andrew discovers an antique Luger, the deadly memento of his grandfather's war. In a final effort to save his grandson from himself, Mead takes the teenager on a journey to the beaches, bunkers, and cemeteries of Normandy, where both of them confront the secrets they have been trying to forget.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor


Jonathan Hull is the author of Losing Julia, a Booksense 76 Selection and bestseller, a San Francisco Chronicle bestseller, and a Denver Rocky Mountain News bestseller. An award-winning journalist, he spent several years as Time magazine's Chicago and Jerusalem bureau chief before turning to writing fiction. The father of two children, he lives in Marin County, California with his wife Judy.

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Praise for Jonathan Hull's previous novel, Losing Julia:

"Superb ... an elegant and touching meditation on life, particularly lost love, and the ravages of war ... Classy and provocative, sometimes stunning."-- Denver Post Books

"Losing Julia receives its immense depth and poignancy from Patrick's search for the meaning of life ... One of the most memorable characters of recent memory.-- Denver Rocky Mountain News

"A love story... authentically told."-- San Francisco Chronicle-Examiner

"[A] grasp of history and sense of story combined with remarkable freshness.--Washington Post Book World

"Elegant."--Publishers Weekly

"A cross-century epic of love and loss ... highly readable."--The New York Post

"The touches of historical and technical detail are expert and used with admirable restraint."¾San Francisco Chronicle Book Review

Rezensionen

Another nostalgic, romantic saga from the author of Losing Julia (1999). Hull centers this one on an elderly man named Mead. Alone after his wife's death from cancer, the World War II vet is beset by bad dreams and unsettling memories. Soon, Mead finds himself spending lots of time with Andrew, his young, malcontented grandson. The pairing feels a bit forced at times, as when the older man decides to take Andrew on a trip to Europe in an effort to instill a sense a sense of perspective in the boy. "I'll take him to the museums and show him the palace and the Tower of London and tell him about the Blitz," Mead thinks to himself. It is a quaint notion, that a grandfather's history lesson would change a youngster's life, but the relationship ends up generating true drama in the form of a frightening near tragedy. Meantime, Hull's characters yield genuine insight into the lives of both the young and old. Kevin Canfield
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

A cranky grandfather, a troubled teen, memories of World War II and a trip to the beaches of Normandy-in less talented hands, you'd have the mawkish recipe for a bad movie of the week, but Hull's smooth writing transforms this familiar material into a fast-moving, likable tale. Hull covers some of the same territory-the vicissitudes of old age, the bittersweet ache of memory and the horrors of war-as he did in his first novel, Losing Julia, but this time the focus is on the recently widowed Mead and his relationship with his grandson, 16-year-old Andrew. Andrew has just been kicked out of school for brandishing a penknife. His best friend, Matt, has killed himself and Andrew is thinking of doing the same. Mead suggests to his single-parent daughter, Sharon, that Andrew fly from Chicago to visit him in California for a three-week stay. Mead has little sympathy for teenage boys in general and not much more for his bleached-blond, earring-wearing, pants-dragging grandson. But both Mead and Andrew are intelligent and caring, and with the help of the attractive widow across the street, the two settle into a prickly rapprochement. After Andrew gets into more trouble, Mead decides the only way to save him is to take the boy on a tour of the WWII battlefields where he fought when he was a young man. Surely Andrew will then appreciate the advantages he should be enjoying and will straighten himself out. None of this works quite as Mead thinks it will, but secrets are revealed and truths both harsh and pleasant learned. Everyone, the reader included, is left with a newfound sense of hope and understanding.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Verlag
St. Martin's Press
Erscheinungsdatum
2003
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0312314116
ISBN 13 
9780312314118
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Auflage
1
Anzahl der Seiten
320
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Nicht verfügbar

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