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A deep, poignant study of a family fighting its inner demons awaits in Stewart O'Nan's Wish You Were Here. A year after the death of her husband, Emily Maxwell gathers her immediate family together at their summer home on Lake Chautauqua in western New York for a final sendoff and to dole out keepsakes before the new owners move in. Joining Emily is her daughter, Meg, fresh from rehab and upset over her imminent divorce, and Meg's children: the emotionally unstable Justin, and Sarah, a teenage beauty learning to use her charms. Ken, Emily's fortyish slacker son, and his wife, Lisa, also bunk down for the week, bringing along their two kids: the troubled Sam, and Ella, a plain, smart girl who finds herself with a crush on her cousin, Sarah. O'Nan has a gift for voicing the inner fears that motivate and stifle us, and his characters move and act as members of a polite society--a family even. Yet each is distinctly alone, with voices and turmoil raging inside. The tension between the characters is keenly drawn, and O'Nan perceptively captures the snippets of thought and memory that follow us around.
Ken notes "he assumed more than he knew, not only about the world--whose workings would remain closed, forever a mystery--but even those closest to him." Emily, while preparing dinner, finds her late husband's bottle of scotch, and imbibes: She went to the window over the sink and held it up to the light, long now and mote-struck, casting shadows under the chestnut, firing an amber glow in her hand.... She looked around the kitchen again as if she'd forgotten something but couldn't find what it was. Wish You Were Here is an excellent character study of a family grudgingly plodding forward while believing the best chance for happiness passed by sometime ago. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. O'Nan relies on a patient accumulation of detail instead of a focused dramatic arc to achieve a Vermeer-like realism in his latest novel. His strategy is to record minutely the thoughts and actions of all nine members of the extended Maxwell family as they spend a week at their family summer house, until their smallest gestures become familiar to the reader.
Now that her husband, Henry, is dead, Emily Maxwell, the matriarch of the clan, is selling the family retreat near Chautauqua, N.Y. Emily and her sister-in-law, Arlene, drive up together from Pittsburgh for a last summer visit; Emily's son, Ken, and his wife, Lise, come next with their two children; and finally Emily's daughter, Meg, and Meg's son and daughter arrive. For seven days the Maxwells interact, with Emily's disappointment in her children prompting them to assess their lives themselves. Meg, a recovering alcoholic, is in the middle of a divorce. Kenneth is a failed photographer, whose latest low-paying job is in a photo lab. Lise, his wife, dislikes Emily, and is jealous of Ken and Meg's closeness. The children, whose tensions are wholly other than those of the adults, are tracked just as closely, with O'Nan's account of Ken's 13-year-old daughter Ella's budding crush on her cousin Sarah, also 13, becoming one of the high points of the novel. Various subplots evolve, especially one concerning a kidnapped local store clerk.
At times the story is smothered by its own accumulative logic; yet in clinging so relentlessly to the surface of his world, O'Nan slowly pulls the reader into it. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. See all Editorial Reviews Load up on these top titles for spring vacations and staycations. First Trade Paper Edition edition (April 2003) 1.5 x 5.5 x 8.5 inches Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies) Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #396,855 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) in Books > Deals in Books in Books > Literature & Fiction > Classics 5 star25%4 star13%3 star19%2 star14%1 star29%See all verified purchase reviewsTop Customer ReviewsYou will be glad you shared this summer holiday!|Wish You Were Here--wish I was still there, sometimes!|Boring, plain and simple| See all customer images Most Recent Customer ReviewsSearch Customer Reviews Set up an Amazon Giveaway Learn more about Amazon Giveaway
See and discover other items: john irving booksand over 2 million other books are available for . FREE UK Delivery on book orders dispatched by Amazon over £10. FREE Delivery on orders over £10. Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA) is a service Amazon offers sellers that lets them store their products in Amazon's warehouses, and Amazon directly does the picking, packing, shipping and customer service on these items. Something Amazon hopes you'll especially enjoy: FBA items are eligible for and for Amazon Prime just as if they were Amazon items. If you're a seller, you can increase your sales significantly by using Fulfilment by Amazon. learn more about this programme Note: This item is eligible for click and collect. Pick up your parcel at a time and place that suits you. How to order to an Amazon Pickup Location? Find your preferred location and add it to your address book Wish You Were Here Order now and we'll deliver when available.
We'll e-mail you with an estimated delivery date as soon as we have more information. Your account will only be charged when we dispatch the item. Dispatched from and sold by Amazon. FREE Delivery on orders over . DetailsMothering Sunday FREE Delivery on orders over . Pre-order Wish You Were Here for your Kindle today. Publisher: Picador (1 Mar. 2012) 13 x 1.6 x 19.7 cm 48,097 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) in Books > Fiction > Literary Fiction '[A] dark, restrained family drama . . . Swift circles around themes, characters and events, each circuit revealing a little more as the past explodes like a bomb' --Guardian`Swift...is back on top form. Part ghost story, part whodunit, part tour d'horizon of a nation that seems to have lost faith in tradition and history, it is also a deeply human tale about a man driven to the edge. Praise be for a serious novel that dares to look current affairs in the face.' --Daily Telegraph Saturday Review`A quiet, unhurried novel, with the melancholic taste of a damp winter's day.' --Metro`A profound journey from the Somme to the Isle of Wight' --Independent on Sunday
‘He gets to the heart of people . . . an extraordinary novel’ Evening Standard See all Product Description England and Other Stories See all 64 customer reviews See all 64 customer reviews (newest first) on Amazon.co.uk Swift’s novel garnered a lot of praise from critics, some referring to it as a “serious rural novel,” as having “a lyrical sense of place,” and praising its portrait of “landscape... A difficult book to engage with initially, but thereafter utterly compelling. The plot is remarkably simple, but beautifully revealed and with such insight into human anxieties. well written and atmospheric. I love the way Swift's characters are always so much a product of their time and place. This was a Bookclub choice. I don't think I have seen more question marks in a novel, or brackets, which I found irritating after reading the book for a period of time, but it was... Way below Swift's usual high standard; a rather indulgent and emotionally remote relationship drama