October Light - Softcover

Gardner, John

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0345315502 ISBN 13: 9780345315502

Publisher: Ballantine Books, 1983

Synopsis

A story of an old man and an old woman--brother and sister--living together on a farm in Vermont.

About this title

About the Author

John Gardner (1933-1982) was born in Batavia, New York, the eldest of four children. His father was a dairy farmer and lay preacher in the Presbyterian church, his mother an English teacher in the local schools. At age 12 he accidentally killed his brother Gilbert by running him over with a heavy farm machine (this tragedy surfaced many years later in the short story "Redemption"). He went on to become one of the most provocative and successful American novelists of his generation, garnering critical praise and a popular following for his fiction. Raymond Carver was one of his many successful students. The author of many novels, plays, and transliterations of medieval texts, Gardner also composed operas and librettos, as well as being a painter, he played the French horn. He died in a motorcycle accident in Pennsylvania.

Review

A sublime entertainment. -- Philadelphia Enquirer

Dazzling...profound...superb...as rewarding as it is entertaining. -- Los Angeles Times

Rollicking, ribald, truly imaginative the way Dickens, for example, is imaginative and real. -- Washington Post Book World

[Gardner is] America's great lost novelist....reads as freshly today as it must have in 1976. -- The Tennessean, Brian J. Buchanan

Edition details

• Publisher: Ballantine Books
• Publication date: 1983
• ISBN 10: 0345315502
• ISBN 13: 9780345315502
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 498