The Widower's Tale: A Novel - Hardcover

Glass, Julia

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 030737792X ISBN 13: 9780307377920

Publisher: Pantheon, 2010

Synopsis

In a historic farmhouse outside Boston, seventy-year-old Percy Darling is settling happily into retirement: reading novels, watching old movies, and swimming naked in his pond. His routines are disrupted, however, when he is persuaded to let a locally beloved preschool take over his barn. As Percy sees his rural refuge overrun by children, parents, and teachers, he must reexamine the solitary life he has made in the three decades since the sudden death of his wife. No longer can he remain aloof from his community, his two grown daughters, or, to his shock, the precarious joy of falling in love.
 
One relationship Percy treasures is the bond with his oldest grandchild, Robert, a premed student at Harvard. Robert has long assumed he will follow in the footsteps of his mother, a prominent physician, but he begins to question his ambitions when confronted by a charismatic roommate who preaches—and begins to practice—an extreme form of ecological activism, targeting Boston’s most affluent suburbs.
 
Meanwhile, two other men become fatefully involved with Percy and Robert: Ira, a gay teacher at the preschool, and Celestino, a Guatemalan gardener who works for Percy’s neighbor, each one striving to overcome a sense of personal exile. Choices made by all four men, as well as by the women around them, collide forcefully on one lovely spring evening, upending everyone’s lives, but none more radically than Percy’s.
 
With equal parts affection and satire, Julia Glass spins a captivating tale about the loyalties, rivalries, and secrets of a very particular family. Yet again, she plumbs the human heart brilliantly, dramatically, and movingly.

About this title

From the Back Cover

In a quirky farmhouse outside Boston, seventy-year-old Percy Darling enjoys a vigorous but solitary life. To help his oldest daughter through a crisis, he allows a progressive preschool to move into his barn. The transformation of his refuge into a lively, youthful community compels him to reexamine the choices he's made since his wife's death three decades ago. He can no longer remain aloof from his neighbors, his two grown daughters, or, to his shock, the precarious joy of falling in love.

Meanwhile, Percy's beloved grandson Robert, a premed student at Harvard, joins his visionary roommate in a series of environmental "actions" targeting the well-to-do. Though they begin as pranks, they escalate insidiously, with dire consequences for Robert's family and the people around them.

About the Author

Julia Glass is the author of Three Junes, winner of the 2002 National Book Award for Fiction; The Whole World Over; and I See You Everywhere, winner of the 2009 Binghamton University John Gardner Book Award. She has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Her short fiction has won several prizes, and her personal essays have been widely anthologized. She lives in Massachusetts with her family.

About this edition

• Publisher: Pantheon
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 030737792X
• ISBN 13: 9780307377920
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 416