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Strange Fits of Passion (Paperback)

by Anita Shreve (Author) "On my book tours, I am often asked a number of questions: Did he really do it? ..." (more)
4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
RRP: £8.99
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Strange Fits of Passion + Resistance + The Weight of Water
Price For All Three: £16.36

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Product details

  • Paperback: 336 pages
  • Publisher: Abacus; New edition edition (5 Jun 2003)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0349105863
  • ISBN-13: 978-0349105864
  • Product Dimensions: 19.4 x 12.6 x 2.6 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 18,902 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #3 in  Books > Fiction > Authors, A-Z > S > Shreve, Anita

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Product Description

Review

'Superbly rendered ... touching and troubling ... a subtle and searing book' COSMOPOLITAN; 'Shreve is prolific, polished, unputdownable. Above all, she delivers serious topics with a readable touch' GUARDIAN; 'Anita Shreve's chilling, highly plausible novel moved me to tears and raised my awareness of the shame, agony and isolation endured by women married to violent men' Val Hennessy, DAILY MAIL; 'A powerful and original fiction voice' SUNDAY TELEGRAPH


Val Hennessy, Daily Mail

'Anita Shreve's chilling, hightly plausible novel moved me to tears'
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Inside This Book (Learn More)
First Sentence
On my book tours, I am often asked a number of questions: Did he really do it? Read the first page
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Customer Reviews

13 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.3 out of 5 stars (13 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
37 of 37 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A compelling read, 5 April 2003
By Essex Girl "essexsim" - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   
Initailly I approached this book with caution. It was not a type of book I normally read, but had heard such great things about this author that I felt I should give it ago. The story of domestic violence is not an original one but Shreve's approach to it is. It is told from the perspective of a journalist writing a magazine article on a particular case and is put together chronologically through letters from the lead character to the journalist and the accounts of witnesses and friends. This makes gripping reading as some of the witness accounts appear to have their own agendas and conflict. This all culminates in the unravelling of the events leading up to the murder in the remote New England fishing town and the final article written by the journalist which cleverly twists aspects of the preceeding reports and leaving you doubting your own idea of what happens.

If anyone is unsure of this book, as I was initially, I would urge them to read it as it has been the best book I have read for a while. This is my first book by this author and I certainly will be looking out for her in the future.

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35 of 35 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A chilling, but compelling read, 12 Dec 2001
By A Customer
Anita Shreve's best work to date is a compelling, disturbing often deeply moving read. She takes a potentially over-familiar story of a woman fleeing from a violent marriage and turns it into something which is thought-provoking without being didactic and gripping without resorting to melodrama.
The narrative opens with a New York-based journalist visiting the daughter of a woman who was the subject of a book and article written by the said journalist. She presents the girl with a bundle of notes and transcripts written by the girl's mother and so the narrative switches to the second woman, Maureen English, another journalist. Maureen appears to have an idyllic marriage to her husband, Harrold, the star foreign reporter at the New York magazine where they both work. But in private, Harrold is a drunken monster who regularly beats and rapes his wife. After an especially brutal ordeal at the hands of Harrold, Maureen decides that she has no choice, but to leave him, taking their daughter, Caroline with her.
Maureen may be an intelligent, articulate woman, but Harrold's violence has turned her into a hollow shell, devoid of self-esteem and self-respect. Fearing that Harrold will kill her if he ever tracks her down, she takes refuge in the sleepy fishing village of St. Hillaire on the Maine coast where she rents a seaside cottage and tries to build a new life for herself, all the time fearful that Harrold will find her. However, her life becomes even more complicated when she begins a relationship with a kind-hearted fisherman, Jack Strout, himself stuck in a miserable marriage.
Shreve's cool, clear prose perfectly evokes the bleakness of a small town in the grip of a freezing winter as well as the inner turmoil of Maureen or Mary Amesbury as she calls herself on arriving at St. Hillaire. She is every bit as sympathetic a heroine as the brave, compassionate Claire Dussois of 'Resistance'. However, the real strength of the novel lies in Shreve's narrative technique in which the testimony of Maureen/Mary is punctuated with extracts of interviews with natives of St. Hillaire who spoke to the other journalist, Helen Scofield when she was writing her article. This device shows how what might have been a clear-cut story is an awful lot more complicated, especially when we get more than one narrative voice. But maybe Shreve is trying to tell us that nothing is ever clear-cut and that the function of her text is to actively involve us in the storytelling process.
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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Very frightening fits of passion, 20 Nov 2003
By A Customer
As other reviewers have said, the author has written a well-trodden theme in a completely original way, thus avoiding the usual angle taken when writing about domestic violence. Because previous reviewers have outlined the story so well, I will not repeat it. However, the tension created by Anita Shreve in much of the book, makes the reader almost taste the fear and foreboding experienced by a woman in fear for her life at the hands of her husband. Absolutely superb.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Strange Fits of Passion, Anita Shreve
This is a heart rending tale of a mother & her baby trying to escape her husband. She arrives at the end of the road in the middle of winter in Maine USA & discovers love,... Read more
Published 7 months ago by Mrs. Alison Marchant-Jones

4.0 out of 5 stars True To Shreve's Style
With reviews as diverse as the ones for this book, it would be difficult for someone wondering whether to purchase this book to decide if it's a good one or not. Read more
Published 13 months ago by A. Rose

2.0 out of 5 stars Sensitive story that plods along
This is my least favourite book in some time. That's not to say it's particularly bad, evidently the other reviewers here enjoyed it greatly, it just didn't grab me in the same... Read more
Published 17 months ago by L. H. Healy

5.0 out of 5 stars Another classic read
This is page turner in every way. A tried and tested tale about domestic violence given a whole new slant thanks to the innovative plot device. Read more
Published on 9 Aug 2007 by Hayles

3.0 out of 5 stars A touching, moving story
The way the story was put together with interviews and journal was an interesting way of seeing all sides of the story. Read more
Published on 13 Jul 2005 by Ms. C. Jackson

4.0 out of 5 stars Predictable storyline turned on its head
Shreve takes an old plot - a woman on the run from an abusive husband - and tells it in a fresh, engaging manner in this entertaining and moving novel. Read more
Published on 21 Jan 2003 by kimbofo

5.0 out of 5 stars A chilling and captivating read
The most frightening thing about this work of fiction is that it could probably just as well have been a true story. Read more
Published on 10 Jul 2002 by Christine L

5.0 out of 5 stars The best book I've read in years from a gifted story teller
I read this book in two days.It was so difficult to put down as the reader is lead from one chapter to the next effortlessly. Read more
Published on 13 Nov 2001

5.0 out of 5 stars very cleverly written narrative
I thought that the way it was written, by a journalist reviewing the story of a murder was excellent - the book made you want to go to the end to see the outcome but also stopped... Read more
Published on 6 Jun 2001

4.0 out of 5 stars A good story about a story
This is an interesting story questioning the responsibility of storytelling. A journalist gives the notes of her article about a woman (who is also a journalist) fleeing domestic... Read more
Published on 22 Feb 2001

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