Torch
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4.3 • 13 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
The debut novel from the internationally acclaimed author of Wild weaves a searing and luminous tale of a family's grief after unexpected loss. • "A deeply honest novel of life after catastrophe, of intimacy lost and found." —O, The Oprah Magazine
"Work hard. Do good. Be incredible!" is the advice Teresa Rae Wood shares with the listeners of her local radio show, Modern Pioneers, and the advice she strives to live by every day. She has fled a bad marriage and rebuilta life with her children, Claire and Joshua, and their caring stepfather, Bruce. Their love for each other binds them as a family through the daily struggles of making ends meet. But when they received unexpected news that Teresa, only 38, is dying of cancer, their lives all begin to unravel and drift apart. Strayed's intimate portraits of these fully human characters in a time of crisis show the varying truths of grief, forgiveness, and the beautiful terrors of learning how to keep living.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Years before embarking on a 1,100-mile hike on the Pacific Crest Trail, Cheryl Strayed wrote her debut novel, laying the first stone on her path to master storyteller. This semi-autobiographical story delves into the same topics that power her breakthrough memoir, Wild—love and loss, life and death, grief and happiness–with a rawness that made our hearts melt. Teresa, a 38-year-old mother of two, receives a terminal cancer diagnosis. As she succumbs, her teenage kids and live-in boyfriend all unravel in their own ways, through impulsive sex, criminal rebellion, and a desperate rebound marriage. Strayed’s remarkable ability to depict layers of pain (and the messes it can cause) made us want to hug these characters one minute and shake some sense into them the next. Torch made us cry in more ways than one: sad tears for sure, but also happy tears from the knowledge that tragic loss can breed a new appreciation for life.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A family founders after a mother's death in Strayed's beautifully observed debut. Teresa Rae Wood was a teen mother and an abused wife who escaped to Minnesota, fell in love, raised good kids and started hosting a radio program called Modern Pioneers. "Work hard. Do good. Be incredible," Teresa tells her listeners, because that's what she does until she's diagnosed with cancer and learns she has only months to live. As her loving common-law husband, Bruce, and her children, Claire (a bright, responsible college senior), and Josh, (a brooding 17-year-old), face Teresa's dying and death, Strayed shows how grief can divide people when they need each other the most. Bruce vows to kill himself, but then stumbles into a marriage with his neighbor; Claire drops out of school, cheats on her boyfriend and stops eating; Josh sells drugs and falls in love with a girl he quickly impregnates. The novel, like the family it portrays, loses its center after Teresa's death, as Bruce, Claire and Josh (especially the latter two) push and pull at each other, reaching and only sometimes finding comfort and connection. Strayed's characters are real and lovable, even as they fail themselves and each other; even tertiary players feel fully realized. Though the subject is sad, the novel is not without humor; it shimmers with a humane grace.
Customer Reviews
Work Hard, Do Good, Be Incredible
I read this book several years ago and that motto has stuck with me since then. Cheryl Strayed is an amazing author. She writes with such imagery and passion that you almost feel connected to all the characters. What these characters are going through is so relatable that you can't help but get attached to everyone of them. Amazing story, well written and enjoyable from beginning to end.