Oliver Loving
A Novel
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4.0 • 4 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
"A dazzling novel about love, loss, and the mysteries of the mind" from the author of the Read With Jenna Book Club Pick Homeschooled (David Ebershoff, Bestselling author of The Danish Girl and The 19th Wife).
"A breathtaking tale of tragedy and redemption . . . A triumph." —People
A family in crisis, a town torn apart, and the boy who holds the secret has been cocooned in a coma for ten years.
One warm, West Texas November night, a shy boy named Oliver Loving joins his classmates at Bliss County Day School's annual dance, hoping for a glimpse of the object of his unrequited affections, an enigmatic Junior named Rebekkah Sterling. But as the music plays, a troubled young man sneaks in through the school's back door. The dire choices this man makes that evening —and the unspoken story he carries— will tear the town of Bliss, Texas apart.
Nearly ten years later, Oliver Loving still lies wordless and paralyzed at Crockett State Assisted Care Facility, the fate of his mind unclear. Orbiting the stillpoint of Oliver's hospital bed is a family transformed: Oliver's mother, Eve, who keeps desperate vigil; Oliver's brother, Charlie, who has fled for New York City only to discover he cannot escape the gravity of his shattered family; Oliver's father, Jed, who tries to erase his memories with bourbon. And then there is Rebekkah Sterling, Oliver's teenage love, who left Texas long ago and still refuses to speak about her own part in that tragic night. When a new medical test promises a key to unlock Oliver's trapped mind, the town's unanswered questions resurface with new urgency, as Oliver's doctors and his family fight for a way for Oliver to finally communicate— and so also to tell the truth of what really happened that fateful night.
A moving meditation on the transformative power of grief and love, a slyly affectionate look at the idiosyncrasies of family, and an emotionally-charged page-turner, Stefan Merill Block's Oliver Loving is an extraordinarily original novel that ventures into the unknowable and returns with the most fundamental truths.
Customer Reviews
Loved it
Really good read.
This is the third book I’ve read by this author. I find all his work impressive, captivating and in most cases, very fluid. He didn’t disappoint with Oliver Loving with any of the aforementioned. My only criticism would be that he would go off on tangents just as the story was getting to a climax-diverting attention to some inadvertent topic, which I found frustrating.
The topic itself was powerful. He touches on some other sensitive side topics as well.
I’d definitely recommend it. It’s a 4.5 to 5 star read in my view. It’s a longer book, but well worth the time.