The Possibilities
A Novel
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- 11,99 €
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- 11,99 €
Publisher Description
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Descendants—a “funny, insightful, and unsentimental” (People, 4 stars) novel about a grieving mother and the shocking surprise that may help her reclaim her hold on life.
In the idyllic ski town of Breckenridge, Colorado, Sarah St. John is reeling. Three months ago, her twenty-two-year-old son, Cully, died in an avalanche. Sarah’s father, a retiree, tries to distract her from her grief with gadgets from the home shopping channel. Sarah’s best friend offers life advice by venting details of her own messy divorce. Even Cully’s father reemerges, stirring more emotions and confusion than Sarah needs. But Sarah feels she is facing the stages of grief—the anger, the sadness, the letting go—alone; she desperately wants to hear the swoosh of her son’s ski pants, or watch him skateboard past her window. And one day a strange girl arrives on her doorstep. Unexpected and unexplained, she bears a secret from Cully that could change all of their lives forever.
With wry wit and intuition, Kaui Hart Hemmings highlights the subtle poignancies of grief and relationships in this stunning look at people faced with impossible choices. Called “surprisingly entertaining” (The New York Times Book Review) and “familiar yet richly, astutely observant and reflective” (The Boston Globe), The Possibilities brilliantly portrays tragic ineffability with grace and hope.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A grieving mother tries to make peace with her son's death in this wry and heartwarming second novel from the author of The Descendants. Sarah St. John, a talk show host in the seasonal ski town of Breckenridge, Colo., is devastated when her 22-year-old son, Cully, is killed by an avalanche. She seeks solace in an unorthodox support group: her impolitic father, who lives with her; her best friend, Suzanne, whose own divorce occupies her attention; and Billy, Cully's father, whose distance from Sarah's life diminishes as they grieve for their son together. On the cusp of emotional recovery, Sarah and her family are thrown again when they meet a young woman whose story raises new questions about Cully's life. With a deft and dry humor, Hemmings tackles the unique and unexpectedly humorous ways in which one is expected to mourn: a woman in town whose son died in a similar accident asks Sarah to join Parents Against Avalanche Disaster, "as if by not joining PAAD you were promoting avalanche disaster." But, on closer inspection, the novel is a treatise on parenthood: Sarah struggles less with Cully's death, and more with the fear that she never really knew him at all. "What's the point of everything parents do," she asks herself, "if the kids aren't going to employ us?"
