A Stone Boat

New
Paperback
2004
$8.25

From the author of the acclaimed The Noonday Demon comes an exquisitely perceptive story of family, sexuality, and the changes wrought by grief and loss. Harry, an internationally celebrated concert pianist, arrives in Paris to confront his glamorous mother about his homosexuality. Instead, he discovers that she is terminally ill. In an attempt to escape his feelings of guilt and depression at the prospect of her death, he embarks on a series of intense love affairs. But as time runs out and tragedy looms closer, it is the relationship between Harry and his mother that emerges in all its stark simplicity and purity. Part eulogy and part confession, A Stone Boat is a luminous and moving evocation of the love between a son and his mother.

Synopsis

From the author of the acclaimed The Noonday Demon comes an exquisitely perceptive story of family, sexuality, and the changes wrought by grief and loss. Harry, an internationally celebrated concert pianist, arrives in Paris to confront his glamorous mother about his homosexuality. Instead, he discovers that she is terminally ill. In an attempt to escape his feelings of guilt and depression at the prospect of her death, he embarks on a series of intense love affairs. But as time runs out and tragedy looms closer, it is the relationship between Harry and his mother that emerges in all its stark simplicity and purity. Part eulogy and part confession, A Stone Boat is a luminous and moving evocation of the love between a son and his mother.

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 256
Edition: New Ed
Publisher: Vintage
Published: 05 Feb 2004
ISBN 10: 0099455684
ISBN 13: 9780099455684
Book Overview: 'A beloved mother's death and its aftermath... One of the authentic achievements in American fiction' - Harold Bloom

Media Reviews

A shimmering remembrance of things past and a meditation on love and death...evokes with sensitivity and compassion teh severingof a deeply rooted, complex relationship New York Times Book Review Like a soloists cadenza , A Stone Boat is a technically brilliant, virtuoso piece of work Sunday Telegraph Brittle irony and teeming grief, a pairing that achieves an odd but perfect balance...the novel buzzes with bizarre charm Sunday Times A groundbreaking exploration of sexual identity adn a gripping narrative of loss -- Naomi Wolf These days, very few novels need to have been written: this one did. Andrew Solomon seems to have reached a moment of balance between a rush of feeling and the deliberateness of truth-tellling. It is the everyday thud and constant difficulty of sadness which is described so werll here, above any psychological nuance -- Candida Clark Guardian

Author Bio

Andrew Solomon is a journalist and lecturer of politics, culture and psychology who writes regularly for the New Yorker, Newsweek, and the Guardian. He is a Lecturer in Psychiatry at Cornell University and Special Adviser on LGBT Affairs to Yale University's Department of Psychiatry. His highly acclaimed international study of depression, The Noonday Demon won the 2001 National Book Award and was a finalist for the 2002 Pulitzer Prize. He lives with his husband and son in New York and London.