Away
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4.6 • 11 Ratings
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- $6.99
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
A stunning, evocative novel set in Ireland and Canada, Away traces a family’s complex and layered past. The narrative unfolds with shimmering clarity, and takes us from the harsh northern Irish coast in the 1840s to the quarantine stations at Grosse Isle and the barely hospitable land of the Canadian Shield; from the flourishing town of Port Hope to the flooded streets of Montreal; from Ottawa at the time of Confederation to a large-windowed house at the edge of a Great Lake during the present day. Graceful and moving, Away unites the personal and the political as it explores the most private, often darkest corners of our emotions where the things that root us to ourselves endure. Powerful, intricate, lyrical, Away is an unforgettable novel.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The author of the award-winning memoir All but the Waltz here returns to familiar territory to examine the lives of her first-generation Montana-born ancestors. Her parents, born in the early 1900s, remained on their Montana ranch, proudly confronting adversity and drought, raising spirited horses as well as children. But the center of this memoir is the one who got away, Blew's favorite aunt Imogene, who became a schoolteacher, living alone for 40 years in a remote, scenic part of Washington State. Now nearly senile, Imogene, once the author's model of feminine independence, evokes puzzling questions and blurry images for the niece on a parallel life journey that includes divorce and single parenthood. Blew mines the repository of her aunt's memoirs and diaries, uncovering near-revelations that suggest Imogene's life was far from what it appeared to be. The memoir is energized by the search and by the author's connectedness to a Montana heritage.
