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There are currently 16 member reviews
for Gone So Long
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Sarah H. (Arvada, CO)
As real as it gets
When characters leap from the page into your mind and heart, tormenting and challenging both, you forget you are reading. You are sharing the human experience with another who admits and acknowledges that life can be hard, painful and sometimes downright ugly. And yet, there is goodness. To share this with another, even if only through the written word, is a powerful experience.
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Debbie M. (Grand Junction, CO)
Gone So Long
A father who made a horrible mistake and wants to make it right, a grandmother who suffered a tremendous loss and a young woman searching for herself.
A beautiful story of the struggles of a family. Each character trying to do the best they can, but feeling lost and alone. We all thing if we could change the past, our lives would be so much better.
Beautifully written and characters that capture your heart.
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Cabin girl
Gone So Long
Gone so Long by Andre Dubus III would be a great discussion for any book club. It is well written and easy to read but will tear at you heart strings. A tragic event in a family that no one will ever forget, and how their lives are effected. You will get to know very well the victims and the man who caused the violence.
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Ginny H. (Troutdale, OR)
Gone So Long
Gone So Long is the 4th book I've read by Andre Dubus III. Although this is an emotionally difficult book to read. It is the story of a man who has done a terrible thing who seeks to find forgiveness and redemption from his estranged daughter. Daniel murdered his young wife in a fit of jealousy when his daughter, Susan, was 3 years old. He is sent to prison. This novel is set 40 years later, after Daniel has been out of prison for 25 years when he seeks out his daughter. The book switches back and forth between characters and is long and dense and sophisticated and ultimately satisfying.
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Gail Brooks
Gone So Long
Raw emotions... love and hate, rage and tenderness.... The characters -- Daniel/Danny, Lois/Noni, Susan/Suzie Woo Woo -- all six tell their stories. Lost, lost, everybody lost except the one steadying force, a genuine nice guy who loves discordant, broken things and might pull them all together. This is a tough story to read but once into it, I couldn't put it down.
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Mary M. (Beverly Hills, FL)
Heartbreaking, beautiful, real
This book is a wonder. It is beautifully written and the characters are so human and so real. These characters, who have been so damaged and are so hurt by the unforgivable, are described lovingly, but without any cloying sentimentality. They struggle towards redemption and forgiveness and we root for them all the way. They are not faultless; they sometimes are not even particularly "nice", but they are so, so human. I cried for all of them. They will stay with you long after you turn the last page. I loved, loved, loved this book!
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Barbara F. (Santa Monica, CA)
A Heartbreaking Story That's Hard to Forget
This is Andre Dubus III's first novel in a decade, and it's a wrenching, compassionate story of deep regret and irretrievable loss.I was spellbound at Dubus's ability to evoke his characters' so viscerally, but at the same time, confess that 1/3 through, it almost became too much for me to continue.
"Gone So Long" is a beautifully written story about a father—a broken man—estranged from his daughter for the most tragic of reasons, who's compelled to find her after decades apart. Daniel Ahearn lives a lonely existence in a small seaside New England town. Forty years ago, after committing a shocking act of impulsive violence, his 3 year old daughter Susan, was taken from his arms by police. Now in her forties, she still suffers from the trauma of an event she doesn't really remember, and struggles to love a wonderful husband and create a sustainable life together.
Her maternal grandmother Lois, raised her and is trying to live a peaceful life in a quaint Florida town but is unable to escape her own anger, bitterness, and fear.
"Gone So Long" is a haunting exploration of how past wounds can sometimes make efforts for reconciliation beyond the "reach of love and forgiveness...", as author Phil Klay writes on the book's back cover.
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