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Book Reviewed by:Every so often a novel comes along that is capable of redeeming the losses it so devastatingly conveys. Disturbing, bittersweet, and lyrical, this is a story of people torn apart by tragedy and yet, finally, transformed by love.
A debut novelist interweaves a trio of voices-haunting, dangerous, full of longing--mysteriously linked by a shocking crime and the search to heal the past
Many long years have passed since the winter of blinding white when Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate drove across the hushed midwestern landscape and left a trail of blood and pain. So why does Lowell, a Manhattan collector of antiquities, still dream of what happened, despite his wife's best attempts to draw him back and offer comfort? And who is Susan, the teenager who appoints herself a detective, piecing together the story of the murders while wondering if she'll ever be loved like Starkweather loved his girl?
And then there's Caril Ann herself, who takes us back to relive the ride she swears she could not control. It began on the day Charlie first saw her, dangling her bare legs off the edge of a tree house. It ended outside Valentine, Nebraska, on that night when she still believed that life could somehow go back to being normal . . .
Every so often a novel comes along that is capable of redeeming the losses it so devastatingly conveys. Disturbing, bittersweet, and lyrical, Liza Ward's Outside Valentine is a story of people torn apart by tragedy and yet, finally, transformed by love.
Outside Valentine is an elegantly written and compelling book in its own right, but the story is given an extra edge by the fact that the author's paternal grandparents were two of the victims, and one of the fictionalized characters in the book is, apparently, based on the author's own father...continued
Full Review
(261 words)
(Reviewed by BookBrowse Review Team).
Outside Valentine
is an elegantly written and compelling first
novel in its own right, but the story is
given an extra edge by the fact that the
author's paternal grandparents were two of
the victims, and one of the fictionalized
characters in the book is, apparently, based
on the author's father.
The
Starweather/Fugate killings were the
inspiration for a number of movies such as
Terrence Malick's Badlands (1974),
Quentin Tarantino and Tony Scott's True
Romance (1993), and ...
If you liked Outside Valentine, try these:
by William Kent Krueger
Published 2014
Told from Frank's perspective forty years after that fateful summer, Ordinary Grace is a brilliantly moving account of a boy standing at the door of his young manhood, trying to understand a world that seems to be falling apart around him.
by Louise Erdrich
Published 2013
An exquisitely told story of a boy on the cusp of manhood who seeks justice and understanding in the wake of a terrible crime that upends and forever transforms his family.
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Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.
Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!
Anita Shreve, author of The Pilots Wife and All She Ever Wanted
An intricate and challenging novel that examines the inner lives of men and women swept up in a devastating American crime. Ward's portraits are harrowing, heartfelt and unforgettable.
