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The Gardens of Kyoto
Kate Walbert
其他書名
A Novel
出版
Scribner
, 2010-09-28
主題
Fiction / General
Fiction / Literary
Fiction / Romance / General
ISBN
1439189951
9781439189955
URL
http://books.google.com.hk/books?id=3x9hQgAACAAJ&hl=&source=gbs_api
註釋
I had a cousin, Randall, killed on Iwo Jima. Have I told you?
So begins Kate Walbert’s beautiful and heartbreaking novel about a young woman, Ellen, coming of age in the long shadow of World War II. Forty years later she relates the events of this period, beginning with the death of her favorite cousin, Randall, with whom she had shared Easter Sundays, secrets, and, perhaps, love. In an isolated, aging Maryland farmhouse that once was a stop on the Underground Railroad, Randall had grown up among ghosts: his father, present only in body; his mother, dead at a young age; and the apparitions of a slave family. When Ellen receives a package after Randall’s death, containing his diary and a book called
The Gardens of Kyoto,
her bond to him is cemented, and the mysteries of his short life start to unravel.
With lyrical, seductive prose, Walbert spins several parallel stories of the emotional damage done by war. Like the mysterious arrangements of the intricate sand, rock, and gravel gardens of Kyoto, they gracefully assemble into a single, rich mosaic.
Based on a Pushcart and O. Henry prizewinning story, this masterful first novel established Walbert as a writer of astonishing elegance and power. In its review,
USA Today
declared, "Readers in love with language will adore this book."