Nightfall
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- £9.49
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- £9.49
Publisher Description
From the acclaimed writer of the beloved Clara Callan comes a memorable new novel about first loves, love-after-love, and the end of things, set during summer in Quebec City.
James Hillyer, a retired university professor whose life was evocatively described in Wright's novel October, is now barely existing after the death of his beloved daughter in her forties. On a whim, he tries to locate the woman he fell in love with so many years ago on a summer trip to Quebec and through the magic of the Internet he is able to find her. But Odette’s present existence seems to be haunted by ghosts from her own past, in particular, the tough ex-con Raoul, with his long-standing grievances and the beginnings of dementia. The collision of past and present leads to violence nobody could have predicted and alters the lives of James and Odette forever.
Nightfall skillfully captures the way in which our past is ever-present in our minds as we grow older, casting its spell of lost loves and the innocent joys of youth over the realities of aging and death. The novel is skillfully grounded in observation, propelled by unforgettable characters, and filled with wisdom about young love and old love. Drawing on the author’s profound understanding of the intimate bonds between men and women, Nightfall is classic Richard B. Wright.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Wright, whose novel Clara Callan won both the Giller Prize and a Governor General's Award in 2001, here tells a moving story of second chances, revisiting two characters, James Hillyer and Odette Huard, from his 2007 novel October. In this book, James, a retired English professor and widower, falls into despair after the death of his beloved daughter. Searching for a reason to carry on, he recalls a summer in 1944 spent in Gasp , Quebec, when he was a shy 14-year-old smitten by 15-year-old Odette, a poor French Canadian girl working as a chambermaid in a local hotel. Their friendship never became a romance; James simply helped Odette at that fateful juncture in her life. Sixty years later, he wonders what became of her and places ads in Montreal newspapers to find her. Soon he learns that she lives in Quebec City, where she lives with and cares for her mentally disabled sister, Celeste. He arranges to meet Odette, but their reunion is interrupted by Raoul, Odette's estranged, violent boyfriend, who is in the early stages of dementia. The narration shifts among James, Odette, and Raoul as their pasts and present collide. This is a haunting, beautiful story of what might have been and what still can be, even in the face of tragedy.
