Souvenir of Cold Springs: A Novel - Softcover

Florey, Kitty Burns

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1497693691 ISBN 13: 9781497693692

Publisher: Open Road Distribution, 2015

Synopsis

The world of this novel moves back in time as the layers are peeled away to reveal the truth about a long-ago family tragedy that impacts the characters’ lives for years after. Beginning with a young college student haunted by her own choices and ending with the surprisingly serene image of an aging woman looking back on her turbulent life, the story encompasses a panorama of events set against the changing social backdrop of the middle years of the 20th century.

About this title

About the Author

Kitty Burns Florey is the author of ten novels and two works of nonfiction as well as many essays and short stories. Born in Syracuse, she has lived in Boston, Brooklyn, and New Haven. She now lives in Amherst, Massachusetts.

 

From Publishers Weekly

Florey's seventh novel (Duet; Vigil for a Stranger; etc.) follows a family's complicated, often troubled history through the lives of several generations of its women, starting with young Margaret Neal's dramatic departure from Harvard in the mid-1980s and ending with her great-aunt Peggy's girlhood, which resembles Margaret's in more ways than one. The dramas of each generation are revealed in chapters assigned to the principal female characters at different points in the family's timeline vignettes of individual lives, steeped in the mundane and magical, each of which could easily stand alone as a tightly crafted short story. Of particular interest is another aunt, Margaret's great-aunt Nell, who hosts the annual (and typically disastrous) Thanksgiving dinner and seems to tie the members of the family together in some surreptitious way. Nell and the "souvenir" she offers prove the link between Margaret and her mysterious namesake. Florey has a particular gift for characterization and imbues her protagonists' simplest moments of self-reflection with telling detail and startling awareness. The result is a smart and absorbing novel that rings true. Most impressive is that the many falls and foibles of this clan do not serve to create an air of tragedy nor does the female-driven narrative lapse into sentimentality. Florey's forthright and witty prose buoyantly carries the tale. The reverse narrative structure and the plethora of friends and family can make it quite difficult to keep all of the characters and their respective relationships straight, but the effort is worth making. (Aug. 15)Forecast: Fans of Alice McDermott will appreciate this honest and graceful book. The rather earth-motherish cover art doesn't effectively represent what's inside, but it shouldn't hurt sales either.

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About this edition

• Publisher: Open Road Distribution
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1497693691
• ISBN 13: 9781497693692
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 277