Visitation Street
Two girls disappear on the river. Only one of them comes back
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- 3,99 €
Beschreibung des Verlags
'A powerfully beautiful novel' New York Times
'Intoxicating. . . . Imbued with mystery and danger' Emma Straub
'Pochoda's premise is inspired, the novel that unfolds even more so. Rich characters, surprising shifts of plot and mood. I loved it.' Lionel Shriver
As the hot summer rolls on in Red Hook, Brooklyn, bored and listless fifteen-year-olds June and Val are looking for some fun. Forget the boys, the bottles, the coded whistles, Val wants to take a raft out onto the bay.
But out on the water, as the bright light of day gives way to darkness, the girls disappear, and only Val returns, washed ashore semi-conscious in the weeds.
June's shocking disappearance will reverberate in the lives of many of Red Hook's residents. Fadi, the Lebanese bodega owner, trolls for information about the crime. Cree, just beginning to pull it together after his father's murder, unwittingly makes himself the chief suspect. And as Val emerges from the shadow of her missing friend, her teacher Jonathan will be forced to confront a past riddled with tragic sins of omission.
Combining intensely vivid prose with breathtaking psychological insight, Visitation explores a cast of solitary souls, pulled by family, love, and betrayal, who yearn for a chance to escape, no matter the cost.
'Gritty and magical, filled with mystery, poetry and pain, Ivy Pochoda's voice recalls Richard Price, Junot Diaz, and even Alice Sebold, yet it's indelibly her own' Dennis Lehane
'Explores a community's response to tragedy with crystalline prose, a dose of the uncanny, and an unblinking eye for both human frailty and resilience . . . Marvellous' Deborah Harkness
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Exquisitely written, Pochoda's poignant second novel examines how residents of Brooklyn's Red Hook neighborhood deal with grief, urban development, loss, and teenage angst. In a fit of boredom, 15-year-old best friends Val Marino and June Giatto take a raft out on the bay one July evening, but only Val returns, her unconscious body washed up on the shore. June's disappearance and what might have happened on the raft become the linchpin for Fadi, a Lebanese native who wants his bodega to be the pulse of neighborhood news; Jonathan Sprouse, a Julliard dropout with dark secrets; and 18-year-old Cree James, a kid from the projects who longs for a better life but remains stymied by his father's murder. Pochoda (The Art of Disappearing) couples a raw-edged, lyrical look at characters' innermost fears with an evocative view of Red Hook, a traditionally working-class area of Brooklyn undergoing gentrification that still struggles with racism and the aftermath of drug violence. By the end, the gap between "the front" of Red Hook with its well-tended streets near the waterfront and "the back" with its housing projects remains wide.