Rapture - Hardcover

Minot, Susan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0375413278 ISBN 13: 9780375413278

Publisher: Knopf, 2002

Synopsis

Four years after her critically acclaimed novel Evening, Susan Minot gives us a new work of startling intimacy and precision.

Using a single interlude–a brief encounter of old lovers; two bodies entwined on a bed at midday–Minot defines the distance that erupts at what seems to be the height of connection, as well as the extent to which the senses deceive, and the intensely private eroticism of fantasy and the imagination. Minot's lovers are mesmerizing in their individual journeys–one moving toward a kind of holy consummation, the other toward abnegation and blank despair. This is the wayward history of their efforts to make contact with each other while deluding themselves about the nature of the contact they're making. Graphic, erotic, provocative, Rapture is a meditation on romantic love, sex, and their reflections in the life of the mind.

About this title

Review:

The thrilling, self-loathing, and compelling nature of sexual habit between reunited lovers is the subject of Susan Minot's short novel Rapture. An afternoon of commingling frees up the minds of Benjamin and Kay to ponder relationships, sex, and the complexities between men and women. They focus especially on the attendant hopes, misunderstandings, and quashed feelings that occur when people are involved yet on the fence about each other. Benjamin and Kay evoke no great sympathy, but in this frank portrayal of a faulty pairing, Minot hits on many emotional truths hidden in the motivations for sex and the development and maintenance of relationships in the almighty quest for "the One."

It was amazing how much things could change between two people. That you could feel a person was your eternal mate one day and three months later bump into him in the flower district and hardly know what to say. It was after she'd fallen in love with him after they'd not been able to see each other on a friendly basis, so it was disorienting to see his figure standing there on the sidewalk, purporting to be like anyone else's.

Rapture is a brief but thorough exploration of how alone and private we are, even when trying to open up to someone else. --Michael Ferch

From the Back Cover:

"Minot reaches a new level in her career. . . . Brimming with stylistic and emotional intelligence." –San Francisco Chronicle

"A disconcerting examination of love and war between the sexes." –The New Yorker

"Minot’s story . . . is timeless, and she makes you feel its pure, raw ache. . . . Rapture is erotic, but more: it’s romantic in the true sense of the word." –Miami Herald

"Explores a tragic irony of love and sex: how one partner can reach the heights of devotion at the very instant the other is dumped into the pits of despair." –Time Out New York

"Mesmerizing . . . provocative." –Harper’s Bazaar

"In Minot's writing, one is often reminded of Henry James. Like James, she pursues the filaments of emotion that almost escape language. . . . Minot's writing [is] beautiful, evocative, and self-assured." –O, The Oprah Magazine

"A splendid piece of narrative sleight-of-hand . . . that further confirms Minot's place among our finest novelists." –Minneapolis Star Tribune

"I would challenge any reader to read this and not find moments of gut-wrenching truth, as if Minot had looked straight into each of our hearts." –The Providence Journal

"In language simultaneously rich and spare. . . . [Rapture] has a muscular swagger uncommon in fiction by women." –Vogue

"[Rapture offers] equally convincing portraits of the ways men and women think about love and sex." –Interview

"Minot takes an insightful, intelligent, humorous look at the tangled mess of modern love." –The Toronto Star

"[Minot] draws the reader in with subtle strokes of mood and atmosphere and with her ability to express so much in so few words." –The Oakland Press

"You get the sense that Minot has lived every moment, spoken every syllable, felt every emotion. The weird thing is: so have you." –The Baltimore City Paper
From the Trade Paperback edition.

About this edition

• Publisher: Knopf
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0375413278
• ISBN 13: 9780375413278
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 128