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Grand Ambition

Grand Ambition

by Lisa Michaels (Author)

  • Used

    Paperback 2002

    $5.24
Synopsis

In November 1928, one year after Lindbergh crossed the Atlantic, a pair of young newlyweds set out to run the rapids of the Grand Canyon in a homemade boat. Swept up by America's obsession with feats of daring, Glen and Bessie Hyde hoped to set a record - she would be the first woman to run that treacherous stretch of the Colorado River. A month later they vanished without a trace. Based on the few known facts of Bessie and Glen Hyde's story and deftly braiding the account of the young lovers' journey with Glen's father's desperate efforts to find them, Lisa Michaels creates a tale of inexorable suspense: a meditation on the line between risk and recklessness, and the passions that drive us to them.

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More Information

Format: Paperback
 Pages: 272
 Edition: New edition
 Publisher: Sceptre
Published: 11 Jul 2002
ISBN 10: 0340819227
ISBN 13: 9780340819227

Media Reviews
'Imaginatively and dramatically recreates the honeymoon of Bessie and Glen Hyde' -- Darlington and Stockton Times 20021115 ' A grand sweep of a book, combining both derring-do plot with tingly love story ... the perfect read for armchair adventurers everywhere.' -- Elle 'Michaels is an adept storyteller, with a poet's eye for evocative detail ... her account has a powerful immediacy. [She] achieves that most difficult feat of depicting historical events as real and engaging, and does so with a spare eloquence that makes this book linger in the mind.' -- The Times 'Lisa Michael's exhilarating 'Grand Ambition' is based on a true story ... made believable by Michaels's considerable poetic and descriptive flair ... a tragic and haunting love story' -- Guardian 'A compulsive and haunting read' -- New Woman 'Taut, tough and beautifully written' -- Eve 'A novel about love, life and loss that succeeds on every level' -- Financial Times 'Michaels's grandest achievement ... is her depiction of the young couple. She treats these two lovers delicately and tenderly, without resorting to gauzy sentimentality ! An absorbing, affecting and beautifully written novel' -- New York Times 'In 'Grand Ambition' Michaels answers the mystery of [Glen and Bessie's] disappearance in her own surprising and magnificent way ... she tells a decidedly less sensational but far more satisfying story about two people falling in love, about ambition and acquiescence played out in the most epic, solitary and sublime of settings' 'Like the beautiful riparian scenery it describes, 'Grand Ambition' tends to meander, not really gaining momentum until the later going. But the quality of Michael's writing allows for frequent grace nots that such an exciting story would ordinarily crowd out ... it sounds like a rat's nest but plays out with the balanced couterpoint of a fugue' 'This sepia-toned tale runs straight and true along the course of the Colorado. Michaels' well-integrated research and descriptions give it a simple, convincing period tone - the love story at the heart of this honest, historical adventure tale rings true' 'An absolutely gorgeous, spellbinding narrative; a golden key to a lost world.' 'Lisa Michaels's powerful, deep project is to dramatize the contemplation of history. For we all will disappear, and the survivors of some of us will stare down at the dark, impenetrable waters into which we have vanished, and they will wonder who and how we were as time took us under. That is the strong effect of this compelling novel about courage, love, and loss.' 'A stunning book of refined lyricism. The story is so perfectly paced, a melancholy sense of the inexorable grabbed me from the first page.'
Author Bio
Lisa Michaels is an award-winning poet and contributing editor at The Threepenny Review. Her critically acclaimed memoir Split: A Counterculture Childhood was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. She lives in northern California. Grand Ambition is her first novel.