The Center of Winter: A Novel
by Marya Hornbacher
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Book Summary Information
Author: Marya HornbacherEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2005-02-01
ISBN: 0060192267
Number of pages: 336
Publisher: Harper
Book Reviews of The Center of Winter: A Novel
Book Review: Anatomy of a family and a suicide
Summary: 5 Stars
The Schiller family is torn apart by mental illness. The autistic-like symptoms of their son, Esau, has brought Claire and Arnold's Schiller's marriage to the breaking point and Arnold kills himself with a single bullet to the head. In the aftermath, Claire, Esau, and the youngest Schiller child, Kate, must come to terms with Arnold's suicide and learn how to piece their lives back together. Claire's best friend, Donna, is also struggling with her husband's post-Vietnam, Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome and its resulting depression and alcoholism. Donna's son, Davey, helps Kate to cope with the death of her father while Donna provides Claire support. When Donna's husband also comes to a mental breaking point, the two families must learn to re-define what being a normal, small-town family is really all about.
Every once in awhile, I find a book that combines beautiful prose with a story I can't put down. The Center of Winter is one of them! This anatomy of a family torn apart by mental illness is so filled with the flavor of Northern Minnesota, I can almost taste it! The seasons of the region are cleverly used by the author as a metaphor for human emotion, the cycle of life and death, and the endless cycles of grief and acceptance. Hornbacher has captured the essence of the major turning points in life in which time both speeds up and slows down, when denial blends with the beginning of deeper awareness. The story is also the anatomy of a suicide and the author has made it impossible not to watch this unfold using a perfect mix of horror and compassion. The changes in narrative voice are a bit jarring, but Hornbacher couldn't have told this story any other way. The tale is more emotional for having avoided the exaggeration of the children's emotional responses. She avoided the risk of hypersentimentality by creating entirely believable characters who behave in entire believable ways. I cried reading this book and I almost never cry at novels.
Summary of The Center of Winter: A Novel
The luminous first novel by Marya Hornbacher, the acclaimed author of Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia, is a moving and passionate story of a death from despair -- and a stricken family's passage through grief toward the hope, solace, and understanding that waits for them somewhere beyond the center of winter.
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