Twain & Stanley Enter Paradise
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
From a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, a novel inspired by the friendship between famed writer and humorist Mark Twain and legendary explorer Sir Henry Morton Stanley—"surely among the best books Oscar ever wrote" (Paul Auster).
Acclaimed novelist Oscar Hijuelos was fascinated by the Twain-Stanley connection and eventually began researching and writing a novel that used the scant historical record of their relationship as a starting point for a more detailed fictional account. It was a labor of love for Hijuelos; indeed, he was still revising the manuscript the day before his sudden passing in 2013. The resulting novel is a richly woven tapestry of people and events that is unique among the author's works. Ingeniously blending correspondence, memoir, and third-person omniscience to explore the intersection of these Victorian giants in a long-vanished world, the novel superbly channels two vibrant but very different figures, from their early days as journalists in the American West, to their admiration and support of each other’s writing, mutual hatred of slavery, social life together in the dazzling literary circles of the time, and even a mysterious journey to Cuba to search for Stanley’s adoptive father.
A compelling and deeply felt historical fantasia that utilizes the full range of Hijuelos’s gifts, as well as an unforgettable coda to a brilliant writing career.
Includes a reading group guide.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This vividly imagined and detailed epic about two giants of the 19th century is the product of over a decade of work; Hijuelos was still revising the manuscript up until his untimely death in 2013. In his late teens, the author became captivated by Sir Henry Morton Stanley and his extraordinary trajectory from a poverty-stricken Welsh orphan to a world-renowned explorer; Hijuelos also discovered that Stanley had a friendship with Mark Twain. Using third-person narrative, letters, and journal entries (all fabricated), and by bringing in Stanley's wife, the painter Dorothy Tennant, as a foil between the two men, the author brilliantly breathes life into Victorian times. Particular focus is paid to Stanley's early life in America, and an entirely concocted journey he took to Cuba with Twain in search of Stanley's adoptive father and namesake. Stanley, formal and somewhat rigid, though certainly erudite and keen for adventure, contrasts with Twain, the more relaxed and gifted speaker whose humor endeared him to audiences around the world. The author depicts not only the peace of mind the two get from family life, but also their various setbacks the financial trials beset by Twain and the heartbreaking family deaths he suffered, and the illnesses that plagued Stanley his whole life. Hijuelos's death is made all the more poignant by an observation Stanley makes in an introduction for one of Twain's speaking engagements: "Our literature is our legacy, and if there is such a thing as ghosts, literature will be the only verifiable version of them." How lucky we are to have this rich novel.
