| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Visit the Amazon.co.uk Trade-In Store for more details. |
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
'Shreve writes with power and passion' DAILY EXPRESS; 'Anita Shreve has a knack for wry observation and for capturing the agony of emotion' DAILY TELEGRAPH; 'EDEN CLOSE is a novel of sensibility. Its insights are keen, its language measured and haunting. In it a sense of loss and rapture is everywhere' NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW; 'A first novel that turns rural gothic horrors into a story of fine, high love ... beautifully rendered scenes ... and a climax that will ... put you on the edge of your chair' KIRKUS REVIEW
Product Description
Andrew, an advertising executive in his mid-30s, returns to his hometown in upstate New York for his mother's funeral. He does not intend to stay in the slow rural backwater he left seventeen years before. But the dreams and memories persist and in the darkened farmhouse he relives that hot, bloody night when Eden Close was blinded - by the same gun that killed her father. The enigmatic Eden had been Andrew's childhood companion. Together the two roamed summer cornfields, smoked their first forbidden cigarettes, skated, fished and fought until the tomboy turned temptress - then their friendship ended. Now, despite warnings, Andrew is drawn again to this lost, blind girl of his youth, drawn to save her from the cruel neglect she has endured for seventeen sightless years without him. But first he must discover the grisly truth about that night...
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of Shreve's best,
By
This review is from: Eden Close (Paperback)
This was one of those books that I simply could not put down once I'd started reading it. The emotions, the characters and the relationships that are covered in this relatively short book leave you gasping for more. The story is constantly driven by a curiosity to find out more, to find out exactly what happened to Eden that night so long ago. At the same time it moves on because you want to find out what's going to happen to Eden in the future. Although she's not the main character she's the one who carries the story into the past and back to the future, she's the central figure and at times it's frustrating that Ms Shreve doesn't really let us inside her head, but we're forced to get to know her through the much less interesting Andrew. If you're already a fan of Anita Shreve you're going to love this book. If you've never read another Anita Shreve book this is the one I'd recommend for you to start with as it shows off the true potential of the woman who later produced the masterpieces Fortune's Rock and Strange Fits of Passion.
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A FIRST RATE DEBUT NOVEL...,
By
This review is from: Eden Close (Paperback)
This, the author's debut novel, is a well crafted, fictional work that keeps the reader turning its pages. The book is premised upon unfinished business in the past that needs closure, before the future can begin anew. Here, Andrew, a divorced man in his mid thirties, returns home to the upstate New York town in which he grew up, in order to attend his mother's funeral and take care of her estate. Being there, in his childhood home, brings back memories of a night, half a lifetime ago, in which his neighbor's home reverberated with the sound of gunfire, forever changing the life of his childhood friend and neighbor, Eden Close.Adopted by Jim and Edith Close after being left in a box on their doorstep shortly after her birth, Jim lavished love and a great deal of physical affection on Eden. Edith, on the other hand, always remained strangely aloof from this beautiful child whom she seemed to view as an intrusion in their lives. Eden, friends with Andrew while growing up, was blinded in the terrible tragedy which engulfed her home one night and saw Jim Close killed. Withdrawing from the world at large, she remained a virtual recluse in her adoptive mother's home, while Andrew got on with his life, went to college, and left home. In returning for his mother's funeral, Andrew sets about trying to unravel the mystery that has enshrouded Eden since that terrible night. The author gives the reader glimpses into the past through a series of flashbacks, which show the bittersweet relationship that Andrew and Eden had shared when younger, a bond that to this day had remained unbroken. It is this unspoken bond that prompts Andrew to try and bring Eden out of her reclusive state. It is an attempt that is to have great ramifications for all. The author weaves a seamless tapestry that fully engages the reader. It is a haunting and beautifully rendered story that will leave the reader eagerly awaiting the author's next book.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
What a debut!,
By A Customer
This review is from: Eden Close (Paperback)
Having read many of Shreve's novels, I was interested to see where it all started, with this, her debut novel. All the mastery of her later writing is evident here - if anything the intensity is distilled a little in her later works. A stunning first novel, it propels the reader into the heart of a mystery and enables us to participate in the unravelling as the unanswered questions are finally given a response. The loss of time and the relationships between time, maturity, memory and true love are explored here as in the subsequent novels. A moving experience.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews |
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
