No Two Persons
A Novel
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4.3 • 89 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
One book. Nine readers. Ten changed lives. New York Times bestselling author Erica Bauermeister’s No Two Persons is “a gloriously original celebration of fiction, and the ways it deepens our lives.”*
That was the beauty of books, wasn’t it? They took you places you didn’t know you needed to go…
Alice has always wanted to be a writer. Her talent is innate, but her stories remain safe and detached, until a devastating event breaks her heart open, and she creates a stunning debut novel. Her words, in turn, find their way to readers, from a teenager hiding her homelessness, to a free diver pushing himself beyond endurance, an artist furious at the world around her, a bookseller in search of love, a widower rent by grief. Each one is drawn into Alice’s novel; each one discovers something different that alters their perspective, and presents new pathways forward for their lives.
Together, their stories reveal how books can affect us in the most beautiful and unexpected of ways—and how we are all more closely connected to one another than we might think.
“With its beautiful parts that add up to a brilliant whole, No Two Persons made my reader’s heart sing.”—*Nina de Gramont, New York Times bestselling author of The Christie Affair
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Bauermeister's moving linked collection (after The Scent Keeper) revolves around a novel by a reclusive author. After Alice Wein's older brother, Peter, a once-promising swimmer, dies from an overdose, she writes a novel titled Theo with an eponymous main character inspired by her brother. Over the next 10 years, Theo is plucked from an agent's slush pile by a new mother and is later recorded as an audiobook by an actor whose career was hindered by a disease that causes skin discoloration. The stories, all of which feature a life derailed by circumstance, become more engaging as they focus on Theo's readers. The overarching narrative takes a while to get going—early stories such as "The Writer" are vague—but the author hits her stride with "The Teenager," in which a secretly homeless scholarship kid finds a lifeline through sympathetic adults. Another standout is "The Caretaker," in which a widower gets to experience his beloved wife's presence one more time through her marginalia. "The Agent," a satisfying closer, checks in on Alice's agent at the end of her own long career. There's plenty of charm to this thoughtful take on a book's impact on its readers.
