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"an atmospheric book, evoking a lost world and a powerful, erotic obsession . . . [the prose is] grave, almost ceremonial . . . Its restraint both suits the New England it describes and heightens the tension of the furious emotions it never quite names . . . a haunting book."—Katherine A. Powers, Boston Globe
In a triumphant return, a critically acclaimed novelist offers a beautifully written coming-of-age story set in rural Massachusetts in 1910.
Raymond Kennedy has been hailed as "a novelist of . . . diabolical artistry" (Chicago Tribune), a "master storyteller" (Raymond Carver), and "truly . . . one of this country’s finest writers" (Boston Globe). He is, wrote the New York Times critic Anatole Broyard, "the kind of novelist who gets high praise in sophisticated places." In his first new novel in almost a decade, Kennedy offers a lyrical tale of a young woman’s awakening.
Raised in cosmopolitan Fall River, Masschusetts, twenty-year-old Eleanor Gray arrives in East Becket, in the Berkshire hills, to become the town’s new schoolteacher. Intelligent and quick-witted, she is welcomed as a shining addition to this isolated community. Almost as soon as she arrives, she becomes aware of a local young woman named Evangeline Sewell.
Independent, imperious, almost antisocial, Evangeline is also mysteriously charismatic. A native of the dying "upcountry" village of Wisdom Way, she has been living as a ward of the town. Now, however, she has withdrawn abruptly from school and soon retreats to her native village. Intuiting that the girl has "gotten in trouble," Eleanor initiaties a correspondence, ostensibly to offer assistance but also to satisfy her own desire to establish contact. As Eleanor slowly yields to a growing infatuation with Evangeline, she finds herself torn between her commitment to her community and her loyalty to this headstrong young woman.
"A haunting tale from an established voice."—Kirkus
"Raymond Kennedy is a novelist of such diabolical artistry that he may be the most original American writer since Flannery O’Connor."—Joseph Coates, Chicago Tribune
"As this novel slowly builds to a crescendo, it gives the reader an opportunity to explore the areas of isolation, love, and obsession."—Historical Novels Review
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RAYMOND KENNEDY was the author of seven novels, including The Bitterest Age (1994), Lulu Incognito (1989), and To Ride a Cockhorse (UPNE, 2003). He taught writing workshops at Columbia University and New York University. He died in 2008.
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