At the close of a beautiful summer day near the quiet Connecticut town where they live, the Learner family - Ethan and Grace, their children, Josh and Emma - stop at a gas station on their way home from a concert. Josh Learner, lost in a ten-year-old's private world, is standing at the edge of the road when a car comes racing around the bend. He is hit and instantly killed. The car speeds away. From this moment forward, Reservation Road becomes a harrowing countdown to the confrontation between two very different men. The hit-and-run driver is a small-town lawyer named Dwight Arno, a man in desperate need of a second chance. Dwight is also the father of a ten-year-old boy, who was asleep in the car the night Josh Learner was killed. In a gripping narrative woven from the voices of Ethan, Dwight, and Grace, Reservation Road tells the story of two ordinary families facing an extraordinary crisis--a book that reads like a thriller but opens up a world rich with psychological nuance and emotional wisdom. Reservation Road explores the terrain of grief even as it astonishes with unexpected redemption: powerful and wrenching and impossible to put down.
Reservation Road
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Amazon Review
"Explain this to me: One minute there is a boy, a life thrumming with possibilities, and the next there are marked cars and strangers in uniform and the fractured whirling lights. And that, suddenly, is all the world has to offer."This is the voice of Ethan Learner, a college professor who has just watched his 10-year-old son, Josh, die in a hit-and-run accident on a silent Connecticut road.
John Burnham Schwartz's Bicycle Days received favourable reviews when first published in 1989, but seemed very much an autobiographical first novel. His second fiction, Reservation Road, is, however, a book that resists genres: a tragedy where all the characters are flawed and none are entirely guilty; a thriller where the killer, Dwight, wants to be caught but is too laden with self-loathing to turn himself in, and an experimental novel where the narrative jumps gracefully among three perspectives.
In the opening pages Schwartz establishes strong connections between fathers and sons. Moments before the accident Ethan watches his son standing precariously close to the curb; he sees possibilities in Josh, a shy boy whose musical gifts indicate a sensitivity that is no less present, though more mature, in his father. At the same time, Dwight and his son, Sam (also 10), are rushing home from an extra-innings Red Sox game where Dwight tries to rebuild the fragments of attachment left after a bitter divorce. Schwartz reveals depth in simple gestures--a hand, for example, placed in a hand, only to be self-consciously pulled away. Dwight drives on after hitting Josh, though he slows in a moment of hesitation in which Ethan hears him calling "Sam" or "Sham"--he's not sure which. Out of grief, and with only scattered clues, Ethan begins his quiet pursuit of the killer, a pursuit that fuels the novel to its poetic conclusion. In Reservation Road, John Burnham Schwartz has crafted a lasting work of literature, a page-turner that's also a rich character study. --Patrick O'Kelley --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
"Haunting. . . . Powerful and affecting."
--"The New York Times"
"A dark and irresistible miracle: a heartbreaking thriller."
--"Los Angeles Times"
"Thrums with suspense and moral ambiguity. . . . This is one of those rare . . . novels that you don't so much read as inhabit and that makes everyday life seem altogether mysterious."
--"Entertainment Weekly"
"A triumph . . . character-driven. . . . swift and complete."
--"The New York Times Book Review"
--"The New York Times"
"A dark and irresistible miracle: a heartbreaking thriller."
--"Los Angeles Times"
"Thrums with suspense and moral ambiguity. . . . This is one of those rare . . . novels that you don't so much read as inhabit and that makes everyday life seem altogether mysterious."
--"Entertainment Weekly"
"A triumph . . . character-driven. . . . swift and complete."
--"The New York Times Book Review"
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
45 of 45 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Originally reviewed at: booksbiscuitsandtea.co.uk
Rating: 4 out of 5 biscuits
The reason why I wanted to pick this book up -apart from the fact that the story seemed very interesting and I've always loved thrillers/mysteries - is that it seemed different. I love books that are narrated by more than one person so the idea that Reservation Road is told by not one but three different people who, even though they don't know each other at first, are connected has definitely piqued my interest. And how glad I am that I did pick this up! Not only is it a beautifully written story with a haunting atmosphere but it is something that makes you think and will definitely stay with you for a long time.
Reservation Road ticks every box: sophisticated and beautiful writing which grabs your attention from the very first page, everyday, vulnerable characters in a situation which could easily happen to anyone, haunting atmosphere and thought-provoking plot. It's brilliant how well Schwartz works with three so different people and how he manages to create three entirely different narratives. He describes the life of a divorced lawyer just as well as the innocence of an eight-year-old girl or what the dead boy's family is going through.
Even though the plot might seem like a "regular" mystery with a hit-and-run and the police trying to catch the criminal, lots of action and chasing down people, it's entirely different. It rather focuses on what the family and the driver are going through after the accident, how the family is dealing with grief and loss and whether they can be "normal" again. It describes how they live under the same roof, together but still separate, their family gradually falling apart.... Read more ›
Rating: 4 out of 5 biscuits
The reason why I wanted to pick this book up -apart from the fact that the story seemed very interesting and I've always loved thrillers/mysteries - is that it seemed different. I love books that are narrated by more than one person so the idea that Reservation Road is told by not one but three different people who, even though they don't know each other at first, are connected has definitely piqued my interest. And how glad I am that I did pick this up! Not only is it a beautifully written story with a haunting atmosphere but it is something that makes you think and will definitely stay with you for a long time.
Reservation Road ticks every box: sophisticated and beautiful writing which grabs your attention from the very first page, everyday, vulnerable characters in a situation which could easily happen to anyone, haunting atmosphere and thought-provoking plot. It's brilliant how well Schwartz works with three so different people and how he manages to create three entirely different narratives. He describes the life of a divorced lawyer just as well as the innocence of an eight-year-old girl or what the dead boy's family is going through.
Even though the plot might seem like a "regular" mystery with a hit-and-run and the police trying to catch the criminal, lots of action and chasing down people, it's entirely different. It rather focuses on what the family and the driver are going through after the accident, how the family is dealing with grief and loss and whether they can be "normal" again. It describes how they live under the same roof, together but still separate, their family gradually falling apart.... Read more ›
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Late one summer night as a family of four stop for a rest on their drive home, ten-year-old Josh, standing near the edge of unlit Reservation Road, is hit by a speeding car and killed. The driver does not stop. So begins a story told from the individual points of view of the three adults involved: the mother, and in particular, the two fathers: one who has just lost his son, and the other with a history of abusing his estranged son . Each one struggles with their own unique emotions as they try to come to terms with their loss, and their guilt.
Each chapter is entitled any of Ethan, Grace or Dwight. In the case of the two fathers the narrative is expressed in the first-person, while Grace's turmoil is told in the third-person perspective. Ethan Learner is an English teacher and academic, his wife Grace is a garden designer and Dwight Arno, who lives alone as a divorcee, is a lawyer specialising in estate management and will-writing. Ethan and Grace have an eight-year-old daughter named Emma, while Dwight has a son named Sam - like the late Josh also ten years old - who lives with Dwight's re-married ex-wife Ruth. The time span of about three months intimately captures the stresses, strains and agonies of the distraught Learner family - Emma included - interspersed with equally illuminating insights into the emotional conflicts going on in the mind of Dwight.
From cover to cover this is an intense and meticulous character study of a standard I am not sure I have witnessed before. It is an exceptionally well-written story, without doubt one of the finest you are likely to find for sale on Amazon. It was written in 1998 but I knew nothing of it until my attention was drawn to the film of the same title that has recently been released on DVD, although I have not seen it.... Read more ›
Each chapter is entitled any of Ethan, Grace or Dwight. In the case of the two fathers the narrative is expressed in the first-person, while Grace's turmoil is told in the third-person perspective. Ethan Learner is an English teacher and academic, his wife Grace is a garden designer and Dwight Arno, who lives alone as a divorcee, is a lawyer specialising in estate management and will-writing. Ethan and Grace have an eight-year-old daughter named Emma, while Dwight has a son named Sam - like the late Josh also ten years old - who lives with Dwight's re-married ex-wife Ruth. The time span of about three months intimately captures the stresses, strains and agonies of the distraught Learner family - Emma included - interspersed with equally illuminating insights into the emotional conflicts going on in the mind of Dwight.
From cover to cover this is an intense and meticulous character study of a standard I am not sure I have witnessed before. It is an exceptionally well-written story, without doubt one of the finest you are likely to find for sale on Amazon. It was written in 1998 but I knew nothing of it until my attention was drawn to the film of the same title that has recently been released on DVD, although I have not seen it.... Read more ›
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
By irisae
Format:Kindle Edition
This novel is not for crime, action thriller or other fast-paced fiction lovers. It's not a courtroom drama either. It's a shattering reality told in three different voices, and even if the characters are not designed as heroic or in any way characters to make true friends with, they are deeply human. All three are just normal people at different stages in their lives. They have suffered and will keep suffering from a reality no one can change. And there authenticity kicks in: where the heroes in a TV show overcome the strain with a smile, here the characters go through with it as if in reality. Because you cannot cut real life experience short.
The ending is deeply human, too: neither of the men opt for the worse. Eventually, common sense and a sense of human generosity prevails. There is no consolation, but this deeply human notion of Ethan's last sentence to Dwight is more moving than anything for in it the notion of mere revenge is overcome by a father's true devotion to a son, and to the care a son needs.
The ending is deeply human, too: neither of the men opt for the worse. Eventually, common sense and a sense of human generosity prevails. There is no consolation, but this deeply human notion of Ethan's last sentence to Dwight is more moving than anything for in it the notion of mere revenge is overcome by a father's true devotion to a son, and to the care a son needs.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
By reader 451
TOP 1000 REVIEWER
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Reservation Road is billed as a thriller and if this is what you are looking for, don't get it, because that is not what it is. I kept waiting for the killer to go on the prowl, for terrible night scenes to emerge, for a cliff-hanger of a multi-sided chase. There is nothing of the sort. John Burnham Schwartz is being short-changed by his reviews and book cover, which bring up the wrong expectations in his reader. For this reason, I am giving the book three, not just two stars.
This is actually a book about parenting, broken families, and the tragedy of losing a child. Dwight, at the beginning of the novel, kills the ten-year-old son of Ethan and Grace in a hit-and-run accident. While the bereaved parents do try to find out who committed the crime, the rest of the book really describes their attempt to cope. Meanwhile, Dwight is divorced and has a son of about the same age, who was also in the car. And the difficulty is that they all live in the same small-town community. What saves the book is that it is written earnestly and without pomposity, if without polish either. This works for what it is, though it is hardly a page turner.
This is actually a book about parenting, broken families, and the tragedy of losing a child. Dwight, at the beginning of the novel, kills the ten-year-old son of Ethan and Grace in a hit-and-run accident. While the bereaved parents do try to find out who committed the crime, the rest of the book really describes their attempt to cope. Meanwhile, Dwight is divorced and has a son of about the same age, who was also in the car. And the difficulty is that they all live in the same small-town community. What saves the book is that it is written earnestly and without pomposity, if without polish either. This works for what it is, though it is hardly a page turner.
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3.8 out of 5 stars
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
An outstanding achievement
I found 'Reservation Road' a moving and profoundly disturbing book. The use of language and imagery is both beautiful and effective, bringing the characters to life. Read more
Published 24 days ago by satisfied customer
5.0 out of 5 stars
Very good
I found this book very interesting; a bit different, and quite gritty. I even felt sorry Dwight, after feeling that he was a totally unlikeable character at the start of the... Read more
Published 1 month ago by carolintheforest
4.0 out of 5 stars
Recommended
I loved this book. The story, told from the different perspectives of the main characters, is strong enough to hold your attention and the characters themselves are believable and... Read more
Published 2 months ago by gailpz
2.0 out of 5 stars
Slow
Really slow book. Couldn't get excited about it until the last few chapters and then the ending was a complete let down
Published 4 months ago by Clogan 31
3.0 out of 5 stars
Enjoyable
One of those books where you feel a constant need to shout at the characters to do something. Strange ending.
Published 4 months ago by InLoveWithMyKindle
4.0 out of 5 stars
A thoughtful novel
Other commentators are right, this is not a fast-paced thriller. However, it is a thoughtful character study and the evolution of the plot pulls you in well enough.
Published 4 months ago by Bean counter
4.0 out of 5 stars
Reservation Road
This review was originally posted at Lucybird's Book Blog. I was sent the book free of charge in exchange for an honest review. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Lucybird
4.0 out of 5 stars
Well worth a read
Enjoyed this book, it wasn't an easy read at times because of the subject but it was meaningful and felt real. Read more
Published 7 months ago by ellyv
4.0 out of 5 stars
Almost no reservations!
I bought this as a 'Kindle deal of the day' - having never read this author before, so a bit speculative, but liked the synopsis. Read it in 2 sittings, could hardly put it down! Read more
Published 8 months ago by Bookworm
2.0 out of 5 stars
Very slow....
Must admit, I bought this on my kindle on the basis that it was described as a thriller. This book is anything but... Read more
Published 8 months ago by Helen Fog
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