Goodman, Allegra Paradise Park: A Novel ISBN 13: 9780385334181

Paradise Park: A Novel - Softcover

9780385334181: Paradise Park: A Novel
View all copies of this ISBN edition:
 
 
Allegra Goodman has delighted readers with her critically acclaimed collections Total Immersion and The Family Markowitz, and her celebrated first novel, Kaaterskill Falls, which was a national bestseller and a National Book Award finalist.

Abandoned by her folk-dancing partner, Gary, in a Honolulu hotel room, Sharon realizes she could return to Boston—and her estranged family—or listen to that little voice inside herself. The voice that asks: “How come Gary got to pursue his causes, while all I got to pursue was him?” Thus, with an open heart, a soul on fire, and her meager possessions (a guitar, two Indian gauze skirts, a macramé bikini, and her grandfather’s silver watch) Sharon begins her own spiritual quest. Ever the optimist, she is sure at each stage that she has struck it rich “spiritually speaking”—until she comes up empty. Then, in a karmic convergence of events, Sharon starts on the path home to Judaism. Still, even as she embraces her tradition, Sharon’s irrepressible self tugs at her sleeve. Especially when she meets Mikhail, falls truly in love at last, and discovers what even she could not imagine—her destiny.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

Review:
Ditched by her boyfriend, estranged from her family, the protagonist of Paradise Park wakes up in a Waikiki fleabag on the first day of the rest of her life, dreaming of God. This is in the 1970s, and Sharon Spiegelman doesn't initially strike the reader as a likely candidate for religious conversion. She's a 20-year-old hippie folk dancer from Boston, with a guitar and a crocheted bikini and hair down to her hips. Finding herself in paradise, however, Allegra Goodman's heroine begins a quest that lasts a quarter of a century.

Seldom proceeding in a straight line, Sharon begins by counting red-footed boobies as part of an ornithological census. Soon she's cultivating marijuana in the jungles of Molokai. In these adventures and subsequent ones, Sharon displays a sweet nature but questionable judgment when it comes to romance and gainful employment. Drifting through a string of dead-end boyfriends and jobs, she eventually has a vision of God during a whale-watching cruise. And this enlightenment leads her into the fold of the Greater Love Salvation Church, a Pentecostal revivalist sect, where's she left in a state of temporary beatitude:

I'd heard the expression before of walking on air, but this was the real thing, because when I left that church, my feet were so springy that as I walked, they barely touched the ground. It was like my head had floated up and my neck had gone all long and slender like a giraffe's so my face was a little giraffe face up there, bending and bobbing in the breezy night air. And I walked all the way back from Manoa to Waikiki, back to the hotel in the darkness, and smelled the flowers and just caressed the whole world with my eyes.
Suffice it to say that the Greater Love congregation is only the first stop in a quest that eventually leads Sharon to spiritual and corporeal fulfillment in Hasidic Judaism. As always, Allegra Goodman has a light touch with serious matters, and in Paradise Park she creates a surprisingly complex and endearing heroine. --Victoria Jenkins
From the Back Cover:
Praise for Kaaterskill Falls:

"Eloquent ... Kaaterskill Falls ratifies the achievement of the author's short stories, even as it announces the debut of a gifted novelist."
-- Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

"A glorious tapestry. Every line in this marvelous creation rings true."
-- The Philadelphia Inquirer

"A richly textured portrait ... Not since Chaim Potok's The Chosen have readers been treated to such an intimate look at a closed orthodox community."
--Los Angeles Times Book Review

" Kaaterskill Falls continues where [Goodman's] last book, The Family Markowitz, left off--and then goes further, cutting new ground.... Her truest talent is for imposing a shape on the little everyday disturbances that distract most of her writing peers; she has an almost 19th-century ability to create a sense of linkage, of one existence impinging on the next."
-- Daphne Merkin, The New York Times Book Review

"A carefully observed and haunting novel ... Like the late Nobel laureate Isaac Bashevis Singer, Goodman wrings ineffable strands of passion from the quietest of hopes and
disappointments."
-- People

"Admirably rich in nuance and detail, Kaaterskill Falls sets out to compose an entire tapestry, and certainly in its gradually realized world of interrelated friends and neighbors,
it succeeds."
-- The Boston Globe

"Goodman's clear writing recalls Fielding, Austen, Balzac, Tolstoy. The book also recalls the tradition of landscape in American writing: Emerson's sublime nature, Thoreau's woods, Emily Dickinson's slant of light."
-- The San Diego Union-Tribune


"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.

Other Popular Editions of the Same Title

9780385334167: Paradise Park

Featured Edition

ISBN 10:  ISBN 13:  9780385334167
Publisher: The Dial Press, 2001
Hardcover

  • 9780385331951: Paradise Park: Reading Group Guide

    Dell P..., 2002
    Softcover

  • 9781399792769: Paradise Park

    DIAL P...
    Hardcover

Top Search Results from the AbeBooks Marketplace

Stock Image

Goodman, Allegra
Published by Dial Press Trade Paperback (2002)
ISBN 10: 0385334184 ISBN 13: 9780385334181
New Paperback Quantity: 1
Seller:
GoldenWavesOfBooks
(Fayetteville, TX, U.S.A.)

Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. New. Fast Shipping and good customer service. Seller Inventory # Holz_New_0385334184

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 23.46
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 4.00
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Goodman, Allegra
Published by Dial Press Trade Paperback (2002)
ISBN 10: 0385334184 ISBN 13: 9780385334181
New Paperback Quantity: 1
Seller:
Wizard Books
(Long Beach, CA, U.S.A.)

Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. New. Seller Inventory # Wizard0385334184

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 26.71
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 3.50
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Goodman, Allegra
Published by Dial Press Trade Paperback (2002)
ISBN 10: 0385334184 ISBN 13: 9780385334181
New Paperback Quantity: 1
Seller:
GoldBooks
(Austin, TX, U.S.A.)

Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. New Copy. Customer Service Guaranteed. Seller Inventory # think0385334184

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 28.58
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 4.25
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Goodman, Allegra
Published by Dial Press Trade Paperback (2002)
ISBN 10: 0385334184 ISBN 13: 9780385334181
New Softcover Quantity: 1
Seller:
Front Cover Books
(Denver, CO, U.S.A.)

Book Description Condition: new. Seller Inventory # FrontCover0385334184

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 30.21
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 4.30
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Allegra Goodman
Published by Delta (2002)
ISBN 10: 0385334184 ISBN 13: 9780385334181
New Paperback Quantity: 1
Seller:
Revaluation Books
(Exeter, United Kingdom)

Book Description Paperback. Condition: Brand New. english language edition. 368 pages. 9.25x6.00x0.75 inches. In Stock. Seller Inventory # 0385334184

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 35.96
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 12.62
From United Kingdom to U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Goodman, Allegra
Published by Dial Press Trade Paperback (2002)
ISBN 10: 0385334184 ISBN 13: 9780385334181
New Softcover Quantity: 1
Seller:
BennettBooksLtd
(LOS ANGELES, CA, U.S.A.)

Book Description Condition: New. New. In shrink wrap. Looks like an interesting title! 0.67. Seller Inventory # Q-0385334184

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 57.94
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 4.13
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds