"A novel of stunning subtlety, grace, and depth . . . compos[ed in] dueling letters of breathtaking wit, seduction, and heartbreak." --Booklist, starred review A letter can spark a friendship.
A friendship can change your life. In the summer of 1957, Frances and Bernard meet at an artists' colony. She finds him faintly ridiculous, but talented. He sees her as aloof, but intriguing. Afterward, he writes her a letter. Soon they are immersed in the kind of fast, deep friendship that can take over--and change the course of--our lives. From points afar, they find their way to New York and, for a few whirling years, each other. The city is a wonderland for young people with dreams: cramped West Village kitchens, rowdy cocktail parties stocked with the sharp-witted and glamorous, taxis that can take you anywhere at all, long talks along the Hudson River as the lights of the Empire State Building blink on above. Inspired by the lives of Flannery O'Connor and Robert Lowell, Frances and Bernard imagines, through new characters with charms entirely their own, what else might have happened. It explores the limits of faith, passion, sanity, what it means to be a true friend, and the nature of acceptable sacrifice. In the grandness of the fall, can we love another person so completely that we lose ourselves? How much should we give up for those we love? How do we honor the gifts our loved ones bring and still keep true to our dreams? In witness to all the wonder of kindred spirits and bittersweet romance, Frances and Bernard is a tribute to the power of friendship and the people who help us discover who we are.
A friendship can change your life. In the summer of 1957, Frances and Bernard meet at an artists' colony. She finds him faintly ridiculous, but talented. He sees her as aloof, but intriguing. Afterward, he writes her a letter. Soon they are immersed in the kind of fast, deep friendship that can take over--and change the course of--our lives. From points afar, they find their way to New York and, for a few whirling years, each other. The city is a wonderland for young people with dreams: cramped West Village kitchens, rowdy cocktail parties stocked with the sharp-witted and glamorous, taxis that can take you anywhere at all, long talks along the Hudson River as the lights of the Empire State Building blink on above. Inspired by the lives of Flannery O'Connor and Robert Lowell, Frances and Bernard imagines, through new characters with charms entirely their own, what else might have happened. It explores the limits of faith, passion, sanity, what it means to be a true friend, and the nature of acceptable sacrifice. In the grandness of the fall, can we love another person so completely that we lose ourselves? How much should we give up for those we love? How do we honor the gifts our loved ones bring and still keep true to our dreams? In witness to all the wonder of kindred spirits and bittersweet romance, Frances and Bernard is a tribute to the power of friendship and the people who help us discover who we are.
More than four million readers fell in love with Nan, the smart, spirited, and sympathetic heroine of the #1 New York Times bestseller The Nanny Diaries. After living abroad for twelve years, Nan and her husband, Ryan, aka H.H., have returned to New York to get her new business off the ground and fix up their fixer-upper. To compound the mounting construction woes and marital chaos of Ryan announcing his sudden desire to start a family, sixteen-year-old Grayer X makes a drunken, late-night visit wanting to know why Nan abandoned him all those years ago. Soon she is drawn back into Mrs. X's ever-bizarre Upper East Side conclave of power and privilege in this "eminently readable" and "surprisingly affecting" (Entertainment Weekly) tale of what happens when a community that chooses money over love finds itself with neither.
Nick Twisp is back! America's most literate teen diarist returns with more riotous adventures through the land mines of 21st century adolescence. This sequel to C.D. Payne's acclaimed first novel "Youth in Revolt" finds love-struck Nick Twisp still on the lam from the law and his parents. Our 14-year-old hero (and his multiplying alter egos) now must battle blizzards, back-stabbing aliens, vengeful parents, and school officials determined to schedule him into girls' gym. He conspires to play cupid, journeys south of the border on a secret mission, takes some gunplay lessons from his distraught mom, and still finds time to confide all to his diary while inadvertently wreaking havoc in cyberspace. A must-read for Nick Twisp fans.
"Lyrical and stark by turns, Vengeance Follows is as spare as a Hemingway story and as creepy as one by Poe." -- Mary Doria Russell, 2005 Pulitzer Prize nominee and author of The Sparrow
A young man loses the true love of his life and seeks vengeance from the man he holds responsible for his wife's death. Told with elegant simplicity, this novel of literary suspense is a tragic story of love and loss that ultimately reveals the cruelty of human nature and the healing power of forgiveness.
Sam and Sophie's idyllic life of Parisian cafés, fine wine, and romantic passion is torn apart when Sophie is diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor. Then Sophie reveals something that happened years before they met--a horrific event that changed her life and left her wounded in ways no one knew. She's found peace in the years since, she swears to Sam. But then she's gone, and Sam finds only pain.
Bereft and alone, he leaves the City of Light and seeks solace in a small French village where no one knows him or his past. Troubled in heart and mind, he knows one man is responsible for Sophie's death. Sam cannot live without confronting him and holding him accountable for his past crimes.
And so Sam travels to America, to a charming little Ohio town where lights twinkle on the snow in winter and fairs shimmer in the summer heat. Here, Sam will seek his revenge--and find retribution for his lost love in a way he could never imagine ...
"Mesmerizing and masterful ... Aching suspense ... Gets inside the head of a lethal sociopath while maintaining a loving evocation of a quiet Ohio town with a Richard-Russo-like respect for the human soul." -- Ron Powers, Pulitzer Prize-winning critic and New York Times #1 bestselling coauthor of Flags of Our Fathers
"Beautifully written and memorable ... A story of poignant love, brutal loss, and triumph renewal, a testament to the human spirit against all odds." -- Phillip Gardner, author of Someone To Crawl Back To