The Pilot's Wife (Oprah's Book Club)
Anita Shreve's hauntingly beautiful #1 bestseller and Oprah's Book Club selection about tragedy, grief, betrayal, and the 'impossibility of knowing another person.'
As a pilot's wife, Kathryn has learned to expect both intense exhilaration and long periods alone, but nothing has prepared her for a late-night knock that lets her know her husband has died in a crash.
Until now, Kathryn Lyons's life has been peaceful if unextraordinary: a satisfying job teaching high school in the New England mill town of her childhood; a picture-perfect home by the ocean; a precocious, independent-minded fifteen-year-old daughter; and a happy marriage whose occasional dull passages she attributes to the unavoidable deadening of time.
As Kathryn struggles with her grief, she descends into a maelstrom of publicity stirred up by the modern hunger for the details of tragedy. Even before the plane is located in waters off the Irish coast, the relentless scrutiny of her husband's life begins to bring a bizarre personal mystery into focus. Could there be any truth to the increasingly disturbing rumors that he had a secret life?
As a pilot's wife, Kathryn has learned to expect both intense exhilaration and long periods alone, but nothing has prepared her for a late-night knock that lets her know her husband has died in a crash.
Until now, Kathryn Lyons's life has been peaceful if unextraordinary: a satisfying job teaching high school in the New England mill town of her childhood; a picture-perfect home by the ocean; a precocious, independent-minded fifteen-year-old daughter; and a happy marriage whose occasional dull passages she attributes to the unavoidable deadening of time.
As Kathryn struggles with her grief, she descends into a maelstrom of publicity stirred up by the modern hunger for the details of tragedy. Even before the plane is located in waters off the Irish coast, the relentless scrutiny of her husband's life begins to bring a bizarre personal mystery into focus. Could there be any truth to the increasingly disturbing rumors that he had a secret life?
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Community Reviews
So...it's probably quite obvious that I'm back at work. I was averaging a book a week and now, three weeks have passed with no new reviews. A few people have even contacted me (which I loved) about what I was reading now. Sorry folks, the whole having to get up early to teach the children how to read is interrupting my own leisurely reading time. I'm hoping once the haze of the beginning lifts, I'll be able to get back into a better reading routing. For now, once or twice a month is probably our max. It saddens me, too.
Without further ado...
The Pilot's Wife by Anita Shreve was given to me in passing. A friend of mine was cleaning out her books and stumbled upon this. Because she was moving, she needed a place for the books to go and allowed me the chance to rummage through the selection. (Don't we love a friend like this!). I picked up The Pilot's Wife and thumbed through the pages, contemplating on whether or not I wanted to read a book that might be too close to home for me, after all, I am a pilot's wife. I decided to take a chance. I'm glad I did.
Kathryn Lyons fumbles in the dark when a late night knock comes at her door. (I'm not giving anything away here, this is on page one) There is no other way to interpret the stranger on the front porch. Her husband, Jack Lyons, has been killed in a plane accident. Immediately, she is sucked into a tornado of events. How will she cope? How will she tell her daughter? This opening scene is heart-wrechnig, especially if you are parent. You travel with Kathryn on this journey of loss, hoping that behind each turn there is some good news to follow.
As Kathryn, her daughter Mattie, and her grandmother Julia sift through the wreckage of their lives and deflect the horrible stories the media perpetrates during this difficult time, Kathryn begins to wonder if she ever knew Jack at all. Her daughter, a teenager handling the upset in her life the way most teenagers do - with deference and anger and grace depending on which day you catch her - pops off to her mom saying, "How well does anyone every really know anyone else, anyway?". Kathryn assures her daughter and herself that she knew Jack, she knew her husband, but as the novel unfolds, we find that is not true; her daughter's wisdom far beyond her own.
Kathryn Lyons is a character you follow closely as you read. I think this is because you want so much for her, you want just one page, one moment, to have good news; for her to wake up from this nightmare her life has become. Anita Shreve will tease you a bit, but in the end sometimes life is just not fair.
Anita Shreve writes expertly. I felt every emotion, good and bad. Every betrayal leaped off the page into my soul. It is such a well-written novel that I believe anyone would enjoy the reading. It is a women's fiction piece to me and I say this because it's not so literary one has to think all the way through, The Pilot's Wife is a novel with staying power. It was made into a movie in 2002, but didn't boast big name actors. I've not seen the film, and I probably won't; the story in the book was so strong I don't need a visible representation of this work.
The Pilot's Wife was selected for the Oprah Book Club and became an international best-seller.
Anita Shreve is an author I will read again. She's written several books, many of them best-sellers. She says "She loves the novel form and writes only in that genre...The best analogy I can give to describe writing for me is daydreaming," she says. "A certain amount of craft is brought to bear, but the experience feels very dreamlike."
This is a book I would recommend to anyone looking to read a solid story. There is just enough tenderness and love within the mystery and suspense to pull a reader forward, the book is just really good. It's that simple.
For more about Anita Shreve visit her website at http://anitashreve.com
Without further ado...
The Pilot's Wife by Anita Shreve was given to me in passing. A friend of mine was cleaning out her books and stumbled upon this. Because she was moving, she needed a place for the books to go and allowed me the chance to rummage through the selection. (Don't we love a friend like this!). I picked up The Pilot's Wife and thumbed through the pages, contemplating on whether or not I wanted to read a book that might be too close to home for me, after all, I am a pilot's wife. I decided to take a chance. I'm glad I did.
Kathryn Lyons fumbles in the dark when a late night knock comes at her door. (I'm not giving anything away here, this is on page one) There is no other way to interpret the stranger on the front porch. Her husband, Jack Lyons, has been killed in a plane accident. Immediately, she is sucked into a tornado of events. How will she cope? How will she tell her daughter? This opening scene is heart-wrechnig, especially if you are parent. You travel with Kathryn on this journey of loss, hoping that behind each turn there is some good news to follow.
As Kathryn, her daughter Mattie, and her grandmother Julia sift through the wreckage of their lives and deflect the horrible stories the media perpetrates during this difficult time, Kathryn begins to wonder if she ever knew Jack at all. Her daughter, a teenager handling the upset in her life the way most teenagers do - with deference and anger and grace depending on which day you catch her - pops off to her mom saying, "How well does anyone every really know anyone else, anyway?". Kathryn assures her daughter and herself that she knew Jack, she knew her husband, but as the novel unfolds, we find that is not true; her daughter's wisdom far beyond her own.
Kathryn Lyons is a character you follow closely as you read. I think this is because you want so much for her, you want just one page, one moment, to have good news; for her to wake up from this nightmare her life has become. Anita Shreve will tease you a bit, but in the end sometimes life is just not fair.
Anita Shreve writes expertly. I felt every emotion, good and bad. Every betrayal leaped off the page into my soul. It is such a well-written novel that I believe anyone would enjoy the reading. It is a women's fiction piece to me and I say this because it's not so literary one has to think all the way through, The Pilot's Wife is a novel with staying power. It was made into a movie in 2002, but didn't boast big name actors. I've not seen the film, and I probably won't; the story in the book was so strong I don't need a visible representation of this work.
The Pilot's Wife was selected for the Oprah Book Club and became an international best-seller.
Anita Shreve is an author I will read again. She's written several books, many of them best-sellers. She says "She loves the novel form and writes only in that genre...The best analogy I can give to describe writing for me is daydreaming," she says. "A certain amount of craft is brought to bear, but the experience feels very dreamlike."
This is a book I would recommend to anyone looking to read a solid story. There is just enough tenderness and love within the mystery and suspense to pull a reader forward, the book is just really good. It's that simple.
For more about Anita Shreve visit her website at http://anitashreve.com
I couldn’t put this down. Another beach read. It was somewhat predictable as the secrets started to unravel but what sucked me in was the raw real portrayal of the grief for both Kathryn and her daughter.
I recently re-read this book, my favorite by far of Anita Shreve's many novels. It grabs you from the first sentence and simply will not let go. Her writing is elegant, not spare yet not at all overwritten. Very character driven, this story focuses on the widow of a pilot and the secrets she learns about his life, bringing up the question of how well we can ever know another person.
An outstanding novel.
An outstanding novel.
This was the most compelling book I've read in a long time. Shreve has woven a tale of love and loss, grief and inexplicable hope. Kathryn is awakened in the middle of the night by a knock on the door. A union representative for her husband's airline is there to share the news every pilot's wife dreads. As the story unfolds, Kathryn's grief is played out realistically and poignantly and a mystery presents itself. As quoted from the novel: "How well cana we ever really know another person?"
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