Saturday, April 16, 2011

What is Stewart O'Nan reading?

The current featured contributor at Writers Read: Stewart O'Nan, author of Emily, Alone.

His entry begins:
Elegies for the Brokenhearted, by Christie Hodgen

Smart, tough, funny, sad, with such a natural yet surprising voice, this novel follows a young girl's rocky coming of age as she pays homage to five strange and difficult who changed her life. Brilliant and moving work. I'd put this up for the Pulitzer, and up with...[read on]
Among the early praise for Emily, Alone:
"[A] bracingly unsentimental, ruefully humorous, and unsparingly candid novel about the emotional and physical travails of old age."
--Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"[A] warmhearted, clear-eyed portrait of a woman in her dotage who understands that life is both awfully long and woefully short, much of it passed in waiting and regret, but never, heaven forbid, about just the past, since 'every day was another chance.'"
--Barnes & Noble Review

"[Emily, Alone] quietly shuffles in where few authors have dared to go. And it's so humane and so finely executed that I hope it finds those sensitive readers who will appreciate it… Through short, crisp chapters we follow Emily's well-ordered, dignified life, frequently challenged by calamities and disappointments large and small, all gently captured in O'Nan's precise, unadorned prose… Emily, Alone makes the perfect demonstration of O'Nan's humanizing vision."
--Ron Charles, Washington Post

"…O'Nan's best novel yet…"
--Joanna Smith Rakoff, New York Times

"Stewart O’Nan['s ...] winning combination of pathos, intelligence, curiosity and heroic range, make the dude a national treasure."
--Three Guys One Book
Learn more about the author and his work at Stewart O'Nan's website.

The Page 69 Test: Songs for the Missing.

Writers Read: Stewart O'Nan.

--Marshal Zeringue