Items related to A Widow for One Year: A Novel
Synopsis
Ruth Cole is a complex, often self-contradictory character--a "difficult" woman. By no means is she conventionally "nice," but she will never be forgotten.
Ruth's story is told in three parts, each focusing on a crucial time in her life. When we first meet her--on Long Island, in the summer of 1958--Ruth is only four.
The second window into Ruth's life opens in the fall of 1990, when Ruth is an unmarried woman whose personal life is not nearly as successful as her literary career. She distrusts her judgment in men, for good reason.
A Widow for One Year closes in the autumn of 1995, when Ruth Cole is a forty-one-year-old widow and mother. She's about to fall in love for the first time.
Richly comic, as well as deeply disturbing A Widow for One Year is a multilayered love story of astonishing emotional force. Both ribald and erotic, it is also a brilliant novel about the passage of time and the relentlessness of grief.
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Review
John Irving's A Widow For One Year is the epic story of a family, dysfunctional at best, unable to cope with tragedy--or with each other. The unabridged audiobook, narrated by George Guidall (The Cat Who Sang for the Birds, The Inner Sanctum, The Legacy) draws the listener in with a crisp, methodical vocal presentation. Guidall portrays each character with a convincingly distinct voice, accurately impersonating the characters' intonations and verbal habits. The interaction between characters is both conversational and believable.
We first meet Ruth Cole in the summer of 1958 when she walks in on her mother having sex with 16-year-old Eddie O'Hare, the assistant to Ruth's alcoholic father. The death of Ruth's older brothers (years before she was born) turns her mother, Marion, into a zombie who is unable to love her surviving daughter. Ted Cole is a semisuccessful writer and illustrator of disturbingly creepy children's novels. His womanizing habits prove he's "as deceitful as a damaged condom," but he remains the only stable figure in Ruth's life. The tempestuous tale fast-forwards to the year 1990 when Ruth's soaring writing career is faring far better than her lackluster love life. The final segment of the novel ends in 1995 when 41-year-old Ruth is ready to fall in love for the first time.
This profoundly absorbing story expresses the depths of misery and the healing power of love. Irving writes as a true storyteller, and Guidall executes the narrative with vigor and enthusiasm. (Running time: 24.5 hours, 14 cassettes) --Gina Kaysen
From the Inside Flap
A Widow for One YearThe World According to Garp, published twenty years ago. It is also a compelling story about a family marked by tragedy and the "difficult" women who survive.
Marion Cole, a thirty-nine-year-old woman - and a faithful wife for twenty-two years - has an affair with a sixteen-year- old boy; she then leaves her philandering husband. Marion also abandons her four-year-old daughter, Ruth.
By the age of thirty-six, Ruth Cole has become a renowned author - an internationally acclaimed novelist. But she is an angry, impulsive, often self-contradictory, unmarried woman whose personal life is not nearly as successful as her literary career. Ruth distrusts her judgement in men, for good reason; by no means is she conventionally "nice".
Five years later, at forty-one, Ruth Cole is a widow and a mother. Ruth's child is the same age Ruth was when her mother left her. Now Ruth is about to fall in love for the first time.
Richly comic as well as deeply disturbing, A Widow for One Year is a multilayered love story of astonishing emotional force. Both ribald and erotic, it is also a brilliant novel about the passage of time and the relentlessness of grief.
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- PublisherBallantine Books
- Publication date2004
- ISBN 10 0345469011
- ISBN 13 9780345469014
- BindingPaperback
- Number of pages576
- Rating
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A Widow for One Year
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A WIDOW FOR ONE YEAR: THE "FILM TIE-IN" EDITION - Rare Fine Association Copy of The First "Film Tie-In" Edition/First Printing: Signed And Inscribed by John Irving - ONLY SUCH SIGNED COPY ONLINE
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New York City, NY: Ballantine Books, 1999, 2004
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Soft cover. Condition: Fine. 1st Edition. 1st Printing. Signed. 555 pages. Published in 1999. The author's ninth novel. One of the best American novels of the last decade of the 20th century. The First "Film Tie-In" Edition. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent printings. Published in a small and limited first print run as a softcover original only. The film adaptation is entitled "The Door In The Floor". It was written and directed by Tod Williams with John Irving's full blessing and cooperation. The film starred Jeff Bridges, Kim Basinger, and Elle Fanning. Without DJ, as issued. Re-presents, in its "Film Tie-In" Edition, John Irving's "A Widow For One Year". The epic story of a family, dysfunctional at best, unable to cope with tragedy or bear each other at worst. It is widely regarded to be John Irving's best novel since "The World According to Garp", his masterpiece. "Irving's storytelling has never been better. An engaging and often affecting fable, a fairy tale that manages to be old-fashioned and modern all at once" (The New York Times). "The most dangerous secrets are the ones we're afraid to tell ourselves" (John Irving). An absolute "must-have" title for John Irving collectors. This copy is very boldly, beautifully, and affectionately signed and inscribed in blue ink-pen on the title page by the author: "For [names of recipients], with my gratitude, John Irving". It is signed directly on the page itself, not on a tipped-in page. The recipients, who are named, are (obviously) personally known to the author and cannot be named here. Irving's penmanship here is one of the most beautiful we have ever seen. This title is a contemporary classic. This is the only such signed and inscribed copy of the First "Film Tie-In" Edition/First Printing available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright. Please note: John Irving did NOT sign copies of the book, making this signed copy truly one-of-a-kind, and the reason one collects signed copies in the first place. A rare signed copy thus. One of the greatest writers of our time. A fine copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER JOHN IRVING TITLES IN OUR CATALOG) ISBN 0345469011. Signed by Author. Seller Inventory # 23553
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