Henry, Himself
A Novel
(Sprache: Englisch)
A member of the greatest generation looks back on the loves and losses of his past and comes to treasure the present anew in this poignant and thoughtful new novel from a modern master
Stewart O'Nan is renowned for illuminating the unexpected...
Stewart O'Nan is renowned for illuminating the unexpected...
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A member of the greatest generation looks back on the loves and losses of his past and comes to treasure the present anew in this poignant and thoughtful new novel from a modern masterStewart O'Nan is renowned for illuminating the unexpected grace of everyday life and the resilience of ordinary people with humor, intelligence, and compassion. In Henry, Himself, he offers an unsentimental, moving life story of a twentieth-century everyman.
Soldier, son, lover, husband, breadwinner, churchgoer, Henry Maxwell has spent his whole life trying to live with honor. A native Pittsburgher and engineer, he's always believed in logic, sacrifice, and hard work. Now, seventy-five and retired, he feels the world has passed him by. It's 1998, the American century is ending, and nothing is simple anymore. His children are distant, their unhappiness a mystery. Only his wife Emily and dog Rufus stand by him. Once so confident, as Henry's strength and memory desert him, he weighs his dreams against his regrets and is left with questions he can't answer: Is he a good man? Has he done right by the people he loves? And with time running out, what, realistically, can he hope for?
Like Emily, Alone, which The New York Times called "O'Nan's best novel yet," Henry, Himself is a wry, warmhearted portrait of an American original who believes he's reached a dead end only to discover life is full of surprises.
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In MemoriamHis mother named him Henry, after her older brother, a chaplain killed in the Great War, as if he might take his place. In family lore the dead Henry had been a softhearted boy, a rescuer of stranded earthworms and fallen sparrows, presaging his vocation as a saver of souls. Salutatorian of his seminary class, he volunteered for duty overseas, sending home poems and charcoal sketches of life in the trenches. At church the stained-glass window that showed a barefoot Christ carrying a wayward lamb draped about his neck like a stole was dedicated in loving memory of the Rt. Rev. Henry Leland Chase, 1893-1917, the mock-Gothic inscription so elaborate it verged on illegibility, and each Sunday as they made their way to their pew up front, his mother would bow her head as they passed, as if to point out, once more, his uncle's saintliness. When he was little, Henry believed he was buried there, that beneath the cold stone floor of Calvary Episcopal, as below the medieval cathedrals of Europe, the noble dead moldered in cobwebbed catacombs, and that one day he would be there too.
When Henry was eight, his mother enrolled him as an altar boy, a vocation for which he betrayed no calling, picking at his nails inside his billowy sleeves through the weighted silences and turgid hymns, afraid he'd miss his cue. He had nightmares of arriving late for the processional in his baseball uniform, his cleats clicking as the holy conclave paraded down the aisle. The cross was heavy, and he needed to stretch on tiptoe with the brass taper to light the massive Alpha-Omega candle. Funerals were the worst, held Saturday afternoons when all of his friends would be at their secret clubhouse deep in the park. The grieving family huddled beside the casket, praying with Father McNulty for the repose of their loved one's soul, but once the service was done and the candles snuffed, the funeral director took charge, bossing around the pallbearers like hired porters as they
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lugged the box down the front steps and slid it into the hearse. Invariably Henry pictured his uncle, his nose inches from the closed lid, on a train crossing bomb-pocked French farmland, or in the dark hold of a ship, cold water gliding by outside the thin steel skin of the hull. He had so many friends and well-wishers, the story went, that the visitation-in their grandparents' front parlor, where his sister Arlene taught Henry to play "Heart and Soul" on their Baldwin-lasted three days and nights.
Arlene was named after Arlene Connelly, his mother's favorite singer, which Henry thought unfair.
To avoid confusion, among company his mother called him Henry Maxwell and his uncle Henry Chase, a nicety her side of the family dispensed with, christening him Little Henry.
Henry-though not one to make a fuss-would have preferred a nickname of his own choosing, something rough and masculine like Hank or Huck. He thought Little Henry was bad luck, and in private moments, rooting through his father's workbench in the cellar for a spool of kite string, or of on a rainy day, hiding from Arlene in the lumber room beneath the eaves, or after midnight, climbing the boxed back stairwell with a filched sticky bun, he felt watched over by a ghost neither kindly nor malevolent, merely a silent presence noting his every move like a judge. His mother never said precisely how his uncle had died, leaving Henry, with a child's dire imagination, to picture, in a flash, a German shell catapulting a rag doll of a doughboy through the air, scattering his limbs over a cratered no-man's-land, one arm caught in a coil of barbed wire, the hand still clutching a small gold cross.
On his mother's dresser, in a silver frame that captured fingerprints, surrounded by other, less interesting relatives from before Henry was born, stood a bleached Kodak of her brother on the dock at Chautauqua, proudly holding up a glistening muskie. Each time Henry snuck into his parents' bedroom to puzzle ov
Arlene was named after Arlene Connelly, his mother's favorite singer, which Henry thought unfair.
To avoid confusion, among company his mother called him Henry Maxwell and his uncle Henry Chase, a nicety her side of the family dispensed with, christening him Little Henry.
Henry-though not one to make a fuss-would have preferred a nickname of his own choosing, something rough and masculine like Hank or Huck. He thought Little Henry was bad luck, and in private moments, rooting through his father's workbench in the cellar for a spool of kite string, or of on a rainy day, hiding from Arlene in the lumber room beneath the eaves, or after midnight, climbing the boxed back stairwell with a filched sticky bun, he felt watched over by a ghost neither kindly nor malevolent, merely a silent presence noting his every move like a judge. His mother never said precisely how his uncle had died, leaving Henry, with a child's dire imagination, to picture, in a flash, a German shell catapulting a rag doll of a doughboy through the air, scattering his limbs over a cratered no-man's-land, one arm caught in a coil of barbed wire, the hand still clutching a small gold cross.
On his mother's dresser, in a silver frame that captured fingerprints, surrounded by other, less interesting relatives from before Henry was born, stood a bleached Kodak of her brother on the dock at Chautauqua, proudly holding up a glistening muskie. Each time Henry snuck into his parents' bedroom to puzzle ov
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Autoren-Porträt von Stewart O'Nan
Stewart O'Nan is the author of numerous books, including West of Sunset, The Odds, Emily Alone, Snow Angels, Songs for the Missing, and A Prayer for the Dying. His 2007 novel, Last Night at the Lobster, was a national bestseller and a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. He was born and raised in Pittsburgh, where he lives with his family.
Bibliographische Angaben
- Autor: Stewart O'Nan
- 2020, 384 Seiten, Masse: 13,4 x 20,2 cm, Kartoniert (TB), Englisch
- Verlag: PENGUIN BOOKS
- ISBN-10: 073522305X
- ISBN-13: 9780735223059
- Erscheinungsdatum: 21.04.2020
Sprache:
Englisch
Pressezitat
Praise for Henry, Himself:A New York Times Editors' Choice
"Beautifully spare and poignant . . . a novel that charms not through its plot, but through its subtle revelations of character and the human condition." The New York Times Book Review
"Stewart O Nan excels at portraying the dilemmas and desires of ordinary people . . . A wise, tender and humorous writer, he portrays outwardly unexceptional people with rich inner lives defined by doubt and anxiety, affection and hope. Henry, Himself is a beautiful book with a touch of the ineffable about it, and the best novel I have read so far this year." Mary Ann Gwinn, The Seattle Times
"O'Nan, with some of his most gorgeous writing, [provides] Henry instances of unexpected grace . . . This novel is a lovely tribute to the enduring mystery of an ordinary life." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
"O Nan has returned to the mode that marks his best work, capturing America s shaky middle class with dignity . . . Tracking Henry s subtle interplay with [his wife] Emily, and the unspoken mysteries that concern him, O Nan reveals a rich inner life." Minneapolis Star Tribune
"As usual, this profoundly unpretentious writer employs lucid, no-frills prose to cogently convey complicated emotions and fraught family interactions. The novel makes no claims for Henry or his kin as exceptional people but instead celebrates the fullness and uniqueness of each ordinary human being. Astute and tender, rich in lovely images and revealing details another wonderful piece of work from the immensely gifted O'Nan." Kirkus (starred review)
"Charming, meditative, gently funny, and stealthily poignant portrait [of Henry] . . . O'Nan elevates the routines and chores of quiet domesticity to a nearly spiritual level in his lingering attention to details . . . Like Richard Russo and Anne Tyler, O'Nan discerningly
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celebrates the glory of the ordinary in this pitch-perfect tale of the hidden everyday valor of a humble and good man." Booklist
"Engaging and immersive . . . One of O Nan s gifts is his ability to craft his characters with such uncanny attention to detail that the reader comes to care for them as the author does . . . [A] poignant, everyman story." Book Page
"Henry, Himself is a character-driven novel, the quiet story of a man from the greatest generation who finally learns at 75 to stop worrying about his past and any mistakes he may have made and to start living for for the moment." The Missourian blog
Praise for Emily, Alone:
"O'Nan's best novel yet . . . It's heartbreaking stuff I will confess I found myself sobbing at certain, often unexpected points . . . and yet the novel's brilliance lies just as much with O'Nan's innate comic timing." The New York Times Book Review
"Emily is as authentic a character as any who ever walked the pages of a novel . . . filled with joy and rue . . . an ordinary life made, by its quiet rendering, extraordinary." The Boston Globe
Praise for Wish You Were Here:
"O'Nan's finest and deepest novel to date . . . the action rises and ebbs with the rhythms of daily life . . . O'Nan draws [his characters] with sympathy and subtlety, especially the women." The New York Times Book Review
"Stark and brilliantly mesmerizing . . . You read on less to find out what happens to the Maxwells than to become better acquainted with the characters, whom O'Nan makes fascinating and familiar. Here are 'our real lives.'" Los Angeles Times
"Engaging and immersive . . . One of O Nan s gifts is his ability to craft his characters with such uncanny attention to detail that the reader comes to care for them as the author does . . . [A] poignant, everyman story." Book Page
"Henry, Himself is a character-driven novel, the quiet story of a man from the greatest generation who finally learns at 75 to stop worrying about his past and any mistakes he may have made and to start living for for the moment." The Missourian blog
Praise for Emily, Alone:
"O'Nan's best novel yet . . . It's heartbreaking stuff I will confess I found myself sobbing at certain, often unexpected points . . . and yet the novel's brilliance lies just as much with O'Nan's innate comic timing." The New York Times Book Review
"Emily is as authentic a character as any who ever walked the pages of a novel . . . filled with joy and rue . . . an ordinary life made, by its quiet rendering, extraordinary." The Boston Globe
Praise for Wish You Were Here:
"O'Nan's finest and deepest novel to date . . . the action rises and ebbs with the rhythms of daily life . . . O'Nan draws [his characters] with sympathy and subtlety, especially the women." The New York Times Book Review
"Stark and brilliantly mesmerizing . . . You read on less to find out what happens to the Maxwells than to become better acquainted with the characters, whom O'Nan makes fascinating and familiar. Here are 'our real lives.'" Los Angeles Times
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