The Light of Amsterdam: A Novel - Softcover

Park, David

3.26

794 ratings by Goodreads

9781620400708: The Light of Amsterdam: A Novel

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1620400707 ISBN 13: 9781620400708

Publisher: Bloomsbury USA, 2013

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It is December; Christmas is approaching and the magic of one of Europe's most beautiful cities beckons. A father looks for himself in the past, struggling to deal with a recent divorce, his teenage son in tow. A single, selfless mother accompanies her only daughter and friends for a weekend-long bachelorette party. And a husband treats his wife to a birthday weekend away, somehow heightening her anxieties and insecurities about age, desire, and motherhood. As these people brush against one another in the squares, museums, and parks of Amsterdam, their lives are transfigured in the winter light, and they encounter the complexities of love in a city that challenges what has gone before. Tender and humane, elevating the ordinary to something timeless and important, The Light of Amsterdam is a novel of compassion and rare dignity.

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About the Author:

David Park has written seven books, most recently the hugely acclaimed The Truth Commissioner. He was the winner of the Authors' Club First Novel Award, and the Bass Ireland Arts Award for Literature, and three-time winner of the University of Ulster's McCrea Literary Award. He has twice been shortlisted for the Irish Novel of the Year Award. He lives in County Down, Northern Ireland, with his wife and two children.

Review:

The Light of Amsterdam looks destined to become an international literary bestseller with immense human appeal. Echoes of the great Brian Moore are evident as is a sensibility similar to that of the US master Richard Ford, but Park is more than merely a fine writer with a great deal to say - as if that were not sufficient. He is an astute storyteller whose vision is sustained by instinct, intelligent observation and a sense of responsibility. There is also a determination to perfect his art. He was never going to settle for being very good; he wanted much more and has certainly achieved it * Eileen Battersby, Irish Times * A stealthily affecting novel, this could well give more famous names a run for their Booker money * GQ * One of the shrewdest observers of the way we live now * Independent * As Park's cast arrives in Amsterdam ... the momentum of the trip and Park's tumbling, lyrical prose keep you turning the pages * Daily Mail * Like Jane Austen and EM Forster, Park sets his characters a moral examination ... Park never forgets that he is telling a story - or rather, several stories - but his method is dramatic ... The Light of Amsterdam is a very good novel indeed * Allan Massie, Scotsman * Their stories are woven together with warmth, compassion and great skill * Kate Saunders, The Times Review * Park's seventh novel is a complex study of relationships that sees him allow characters rather than themes to propel and intelligently realist narrative * Irish Times Book of the Year * A delicate exposition of the burden love brings. All Park's books have explored what it is to be human * Irish Examiner *

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