- Hardcover: 304 pages
- Publisher: Little, Brown & Company (1 Mar 1999)
- ISBN-10: 0316647489
- ISBN-13: 978-0316647489
- Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (51 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 5,132,433 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
With five novels to her credit, including the acclaimed The Weight of Water, Anita Shreve now offers a skilfully crafted exploration of the long reach of tragedy in The Pilot's Wife. News of Jack Lyons's fatal crash sends his wife into shock and emotional numbness:
Kathryn wished she could manage a coma. Instead, it seemed that quite the opposite had happened: She felt herself to be inside of a private weather system, one in which she was continuously tossed and buffeted by bits of news and information, sometimes chilled by thoughts of what lay immediately ahead, thawed by the kindness of others ... frequently drenched by memories that seemed to have no regard for circumstance or place, and then subjected to the nearly intolerable heat of reporters, photographers and curious onlookers. It was a weather system with no logic, she had decided, no pattern, no progression, no form.
The situation becomes even more dire when the plane's black box is recovered, pinning responsibility for the crash on Jack. In an attempt to clear his name, Kathryn searches for any and all clues to the hours before the flight. Yet each discovery forces her to realise that she didn't know her husband of 16 years at all. Shreve's complex and highly convincing treatment of Kathryn's dilemma, coupled with intriguing minor characters and an expertly paced plot, makes The Pilot's Wife really take off. --James Barry --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
Review
'Sympathetically read by Blair Brown' (CHOICE )
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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First Sentence
SHE HEARD A KNOCKING, AND THEN A DOG BARKING. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
SHE HEARD A KNOCKING, AND THEN A DOG BARKING. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
23 of 23 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is a beautifully written novel about a happily married woman, Kathryn Lyons, whose husband, Jack, is an airlines pilot. They have a teen age daughter named Mattie. They live in Kathryn's childhood home in Ely, New Hampshire. For sixteen years, life has been good. Then her husband goes down with his plane, just ten miles off the coast of Ireland, and ever so slowly the very fabric of their life together unravels.
The media frenzy, surrounding the explosion of the plane that her husband was piloting, brings to light the inescapable fact that her husband had been, unbeknownst to her, leading a double life, a life that had not included her or their daughter, but had, most emphatically, excluded them. This is a story of Kathryn's navigation of the emotional roller coaster that was to become her life, as she is thrust into a maelstrom of grief and disbelief, struggling to reconcile her memory of the man she thought she knew, with the reality of who he now appeared to have been.
This is a remarkable book, written in clean, spare prose that underscores some of the very emotion laden issues with which it grapples. At times infinitely sad and poignant, it is a story of betrayal and splintered memories. It is a very absorbing, skillfully told tale of adultery that will hold the reader in its thrall.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I've read several of Anita Shreve's novels and they have all been superb, this one being no exception. The story centres upon Kathryn and Mattie, the wife and daughter of Jack, an airline pilot whose plane crashes over the sea. The author deals empathetically with Kathryn and Mattie's shock and subsequent coming-to-terms with the dreadful reality of the situation. However, Kathryn is to discover that her husband was not all that he seemed to be and that he had been leading a double life - a life that he may have been planning to leave Kathryn for. As the questions are asked and the Press descend, Kathryn looks back upon her marriage and is forced to make some honest admissions. Robert, sent from her husband's airline, is there to help Kathryn through the worst of the times, but is he too keeping secrets from her? Anita Shreve writes with such simplicity and yet so much understated intrigue, that she kept me reading from the very first page. Her attention to detail (often seeming so insignificant to the story) often had me thinking out loud, "That's so true!". As with all the author's novels, you have to read on to discover whether there will be a happy ending. Superb!
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I read this book whilst on holiday (fortunately not close to boarding an aeroplane!) and found it easy escapist reading. I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys novels about relationships and who likes a good twist to a tale.
I was particularly impressed by the author's honest and believable portrayal of grief and its various characteristic stages. The plot, although perhaps a little far fetched, was engaging and held my interest to the end.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Long-winded
A "wordy" book, although well written, taking a great deal of time to get to the point - which the reader had anticipated all along. Nevertheless, a good read.
Published 11 months ago by Den
Enjoyable
This was on the whole an easy read, although I did at times find it emotionally draining as the book centres around the death of Kathryn's husband. Read more
Published 12 months ago by Mrs. N. Millican
Excellent up to the final third of the novel
Can you ever truly know someone? This one question is the central theme of Anita Shreve's novel 'The Pilot's wife'. Read more
Published 21 months ago by The story fiend
The Pilot's Wife
This was my first book by Anita Shreve and was a bit disapointed.
As the title indicates, the story is about a Pilot's Wife who has to find the truth about her husband in a... Read more
As the title indicates, the story is about a Pilot's Wife who has to find the truth about her husband in a... Read more
Published 22 months ago by T. Gouveia
An easy read but unsatisfactory
Kathryn is a well-realised character and the descriptions of the grief that grips her when he learns of her husband's death are powerful and convincing. Read more
Published on 13 Dec 2009 by S. B. Kelly
A story well told
I enjoyed this.
Do like Anita Shreve anyway and this did not disappoint.
The characters were believable and well-drawn. Read more
Do like Anita Shreve anyway and this did not disappoint.
The characters were believable and well-drawn. Read more
Published on 19 Feb 2009 by A. B. Taylor
enjoyable read
A beautifully written novel, the discovery of another life for Captain Jack Lyons was not entirely a shock as I had read the summary and critiques at the back of the book before... Read more
Published on 27 May 2008 by Ruth Settle
How Well Do You Know Your Spouse?
The Pilot's Wife looks at that common subject of modern fiction, alienation that separates nonreligious from one another. Read more
Published on 3 Jan 2008 by Donald Mitchell
Not the best Shreve book I have read......
Kathryn gets a knock at the door in the middle of the night and her life begins to unravel. Her husband has been killed in a mid-air explosion en route to US from London. Read more
Published on 23 Oct 2007 by Wynne Kelly
Very absorbing
This was my introduction to Anita Shreve's books. I certainly loved it and went on to buy others. This is the gripping story of that infamous "knock at the door" and what happens... Read more
Published on 25 Aug 2007 by I LOVE BOOKS
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