Caribou Island
A Novel
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3.4 • 40 Ratings
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- $7.99
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
“Dazzling…. Vann knows the darkness but he writes from the compassionate light of art. This is an essential book.” —Robert Olen Butler, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain
“Exceptional….An unflinching portrait of bad faith and bad dreams.” —Ron Rash, author of Burning Bright
Set against the backdrop of Alaska’s unforgiving wilderness, Caribou Island is David Vann’s dark and captivating tale of a marriage pulled apart by rage and regret. With this eagerly anticipated debut novel, a masterful follow-up to his internationally bestselling short fiction anthology, Legend of a Suicide, Vann takes up the mantle of Louise Erdrich, Marilyn Robinson, and Rick Moody, delivering a powerfully wrought, enthrallingly emotional narrative of struggle and isolation.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
People haunted by their own failures and lost dreams drive Vann's earnest but uneven first novel, which opens with Irene, an ailing middle-aged Alaskan woman, telling her grown daughter, Rhoda, about coming home and finding her mother "hanging from the rafters" one day when she was 10 years old. Irene also tells Rhoda that she believes her husband, Gary, wants to leave her. Gary, "a champion of regret," wanted to be an academic, but ekes out a living fishing and building boats while planning a self-imposed exile with Irene on an island in Alaska's Skilak Lake, where he's building a crude log cabin. Rhoda envisions marital bliss with her boyfriend, Jim, a philandering, selfish dentist. Their internal monologues rage with ideas and desires that read like authorial conceits, not the thoughts of real people. The only true character is Alaska itself, and Vann, author of the story collection Legend of a Suicide, is at his best depicting the harsh, rugged landscape of the Alaskan wilderness.
Customer Reviews
Not Recommended
I found this book superficial. Poor character development made it hard for me to sympathize with the characters. And despite the politically correct climate in which we now live, I found the writing feminine. Perhaps this was the author's intention. The book is a quick read, so I invite positive reviews that may give me a different perspective.
Weak ending
I could have given this book 3-4 stars had it had an ending. Not worth the.