April & Oliver: A Novel - Hardcover

Callahan, Tess

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0446540595 ISBN 13: 9780446540599

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing, 2009

Synopsis

Best friends since childhood, the sexual tension between April and Oliver has always been palpable. Years after being completely inseparable, they become strangers, but the wildly different paths of their lives cross once again with the sudden death of April's brother. Oliver, the responsible, newly engaged law student finds himself drawn more than ever to the reckless, mystifying April - and cracks begin to appear in his carefully constructed life. Even as Oliver attempts to "save" his childhood friend from her grief, her menacing boyfriend and herself, it soon becomes apparent that Oliver has some secrets of his own--secrets he hasn't shared with anyone, even his fiancé. But April knows, and her reappearance in his life derails him. Is it really April's life that is unraveling, or is it his own? The answer awaits at the end of a downward spiral...towards salvation.

About this title

About the Author

A painter, teacher and mother of twins, Tess Callahan has written for Cottonwood, The Stylus Anthology: 1950-2000, The Boston College Magazine, New York Newsday and elsewhere through syndication. When not exploring the complex motivations of intriguing characters (in her personal life and in her work), she finds nourishment and sustenance in periodic travels to wild, austere landscapes around the world. Tess has an MFA in Fiction from Bennington College. April & Oliver is her first novel.

From The Washington Post

From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com Reviewed by Carrie Brown Tess Callahan's first novel, "April & Oliver," offers up young lovers who are all bad timing and botched encounters and smoldering passion. Childhood friends, the two are separated by time and an unhappy shared history, but they come together again when April's beloved younger brother dies in a car accident. By then, unfortunately, there is another woman in the picture; decent Oliver, who is in law school, is engaged to Bernadette, who teaches disabled children with saintly joy, but it is troubled and troubling April whom Oliver can't forget. With her unstudied sexiness, vulnerability and intelligence, April exerts an irresistible attraction: She's a girl in need of protection from her own grief and bad choices, and Oliver wants desperately to help her. In trying to persuade us of the caliber of this couple's response to each other, Callahan's prose is occasionally overwrought. There's a little too much electricity rippling across skin, a little too much warmth radiating from thighs. Oliver's jaw is chiseled, and April smells sometimes like the sea, sometimes like "grass after heavy rain." At one point, Oliver's eyes are described as "luminous as glacial ice, those radiant cobalt crevices lit from within." This kind of description focuses our attention on the least complicated (and, in the end, least interesting) aspect of love: its superficial thrill. When Oliver's brother says impatiently, "Just get it out of your systems already. It's only sex, you know," we're inclined to agree with him. But Callahan wants the couple's attraction to be about more than sex. April and Oliver are also soul mates, and many readers will find their bumpy road compelling, a sensitive and emotional account of two people grappling with the complicated force of mutual attraction when it strikes the right people at the wrong time.
Copyright 2009, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0446540595
• ISBN 13: 9780446540599
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 336