A Thousand Miles from Nowhere
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
"You have lost everything, yes?" Everything? Henry thought; he considered the word. Had he lost everything?
Fleeing New Orleans as Hurricane Katrina approaches, Henry Garrett is haunted by the ruins of his marriage, a squandered inheritance, and the teaching job he inexplicably quit. He pulls into a small Virginia town after three days on the road, hoping to silence the ceaseless clamor in his head. But this quest for peace and quiet as the only guest at a roadside motel is destroyed when Henry finds himself at the center of a bizarre and violent tragedy. As a result, Henry winds up stranded at the ramshackle motel just outside the small town of Marimore, and it's there that he is pulled into the lives of those around him: Latangi, the motel's recently widowed proprietor, who seems to have a plan for Henry; Marge, a local secretary who marshals the collective energy of her women's church group; and the family of an old man, a prisoner, who dies in a desperate effort to provide for his infirm wife.
For his previous novels John Gregory Brown has been lauded for his "compassionate vision of human destiny" as well as his "melodic, haunting, and rhythmic prose." With A Thousand Miles From Nowhere, he assumes his place in the tradition of such masterful storytellers as Flannery O'Connor and Walker Percy, offering to readers a tragicomic tour de force about the power of art and compassion and one man's search for faith, love, and redemption.
"John Gregory Brown is a writer I've long admired, and this new novel is his best book yet. A Thousand Miles from Nowhere is a marvelous depiction of one man's stumbling journey from despair toward a hard-won redemption."-Ron Rash
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Brown's contemplative fourth novel dissects ideas about grief, loss, and the thin line between sanity and madness. Henry Garrett, a middle-aged former high school teacher, has fled New Orleans in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, seeking refuge in a Virginia motel. Its owner, Latangi, befriends Henry, and through their conversations the reader learns that Latangi's husband, Mohit, has recently died. Mohit has left behind a vast masterwork, an epic poem that his wife asks Henry to read. Meanwhile, Henry hopes to reconcile with both his estranged wife, Amy, and his sister, Mary. Through memories and flashbacks his problematic relationships with both women are slowly revealed, along with details of his troubled upbringing. Just when Henry seems at his lowest ebb, things get even worse, but unfolding events seem to offer him a revived sense of purpose that gradually leads him back from the precipice. The author methodically conveys a sense of time and place, weaving in references to Kate Chopin's classic 19th-century novel set in New Orleans, The Awakening, and vivid descriptions of the city in the wake of the 2005 hurricane. Brown (Audubon's Watch) is an expert storyteller, and his latest only further reinforces that claim.
