The Furrows
From the Prize-winning author of The Old Drift
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1.0 • 1 Rating
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
A powerful new novel about grief and mourning from the acclaimed and prize-winning author of The Old Drift
A BARACK OBAMA BOOK OF THE YEAR and NEW YORK TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR
I don't want to tell you what happened. I want to tell you how it felt.
Cassandra is twelve; her little brother Wayne is seven. One day, when they're alone together, there's an accident and Wayne is lost forever. Though his body is never recovered, their mother can't stop searching.
As Cassandra grows older, she sees her brother everywhere: in cafes, aeroplane aisles, subway cars. But it can't be, of course. Or can it? And then one day, there's another accident, and she meets a man both mysterious and familiar, a man who shares her brother's name and who is also searching for someone...
'In Namwali Serpell's hands, grief is a kind of possession. The Furrows is a piercing, sharply written novel about the conjuring power of loss' - RAVEN LEILANI, author of Luster
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In the brilliant and impressionistic latest from Serpell (The Old Drift), a young woman traverses the trenches of grief that have shaped her life. Cassandra's younger brother, Wayne, drowned at the beach when she was 12, and his body was never found. With the steadiness of water seeking its level, Serpell explores the parallel but distinct realities Cassandra and her parents inhabit, leading up to her postcollege years: she's forever in therapy, her mother won't admit Wayne has died, and her father leaves them to start a new life. Whenever Cassandra is asked to retell the story, she can't make sense of it. In a breathtaking maneuver, Serpell resets the novel again and again, cycling through possible accidents that convey Cassandra's shock: Wayne drowns, he's hit by a car, he's thrown from a carousel. Then, Cassandra meets an enigmatic man she seems to know is her brother by the light in his eyes. In a series of shocking twists, Serpell shatters comfortable ideas about grief and melds Cassandra's glittering narrative shards into a searching, unforgettable story. It's a considerable shift from the huge canvas of her previous work, and no less captivating. P.J. Mark, Janklow & Nesbit Assoc.
