-Carlos-
New Member
Have you read any of the following books? Your review(s)?
2004 Pulitzer Winners
The Known World
by Edward P. Jones
The Known World is set in antebellum Virginia, where Henry Townsend is not only a free black man, but one who owns his own land and his own slaves. Despite the fact that he owns these men, women, and children's lives completely, his aim is to treat them compassionately. His mentor, the most powerful white man in the country, is deeply in love with a slave and their two mulatto children. When Henry dies, his wife Caldonia tries to run the plantation in his absence. Sensing the opportunity, slaves begin the sneak away at night. White patrollers catch the runaway slaves for rewards, occasionally grabbing free black men too. Edward P. Jones's novel tells the story across the span of many years, illuminating the world of slavery through its many contradictions and its cost of humanity and lives. The Known World has received high praise. Jonathan Yardley of the Washington Post calls it "the best new work of American fiction to cross my desk in years."
American Woman
by Susan Choi
In American Woman, Susan Choi's second novel, she sets her storyline around a familiar historical event, fictionalized as it is. In the 1970s, Jenny Shimada is a young woman hiding out in upstate New York after bombing a draft office in California. She is tracked down by Rob Frazer, who is traveling with three other radical fugitives, the only survivors of a shoot-out with the police in Los Angeles. One of these is Pauline, daughter of a wealthy newspaper magnate who was kidnapped by a revolutionary group and then embraced their radical cause. American Woman follows Jenny's story backward and forward through time as she tries to lead the revolutionaries back to California. The San Francisco Chronicle says of this novel, "American Woman, with its historical acuity and sprawling interior intimacy, further confirms that Susan Choi is a writer of scope, ambition and undeniable talent -- the kind of rare writer whose career you want to watch develop over the course of a lifetime."
Evidence of Things Unseen
by Marianne Wiggins
In Evidence of Things Unseen, Ray Foster's passion is light, whether bioluminescence, starlight, or X-rays. He returns home from World War I and falls in love with Opal, seeing her for the first time through her father's glass blowing tube. Ray's best friend from the war, Flash, gets in trouble and Ray and Opal are forced to move to Tennessee. Ray gets a job with the TVA and takes a portable X-ray machine to county fairs to show people the bones in Opal's feet, and eventually works on the atomic bomb project at Oak Ridge. It is this passion for things unseen that eventually brings tragedy to their lives, and harbors ill for all of humanity. Marianne Wiggins's novel has received many positive reviews. The Los Angeles Times says, "Wiggins' voice remains triumphantly her own. Evidence of Things Unseen becomes a love story lit up by the heavens."
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2004 Pulitzer Winners
The Known World
by Edward P. Jones
The Known World is set in antebellum Virginia, where Henry Townsend is not only a free black man, but one who owns his own land and his own slaves. Despite the fact that he owns these men, women, and children's lives completely, his aim is to treat them compassionately. His mentor, the most powerful white man in the country, is deeply in love with a slave and their two mulatto children. When Henry dies, his wife Caldonia tries to run the plantation in his absence. Sensing the opportunity, slaves begin the sneak away at night. White patrollers catch the runaway slaves for rewards, occasionally grabbing free black men too. Edward P. Jones's novel tells the story across the span of many years, illuminating the world of slavery through its many contradictions and its cost of humanity and lives. The Known World has received high praise. Jonathan Yardley of the Washington Post calls it "the best new work of American fiction to cross my desk in years."
American Woman
by Susan Choi
In American Woman, Susan Choi's second novel, she sets her storyline around a familiar historical event, fictionalized as it is. In the 1970s, Jenny Shimada is a young woman hiding out in upstate New York after bombing a draft office in California. She is tracked down by Rob Frazer, who is traveling with three other radical fugitives, the only survivors of a shoot-out with the police in Los Angeles. One of these is Pauline, daughter of a wealthy newspaper magnate who was kidnapped by a revolutionary group and then embraced their radical cause. American Woman follows Jenny's story backward and forward through time as she tries to lead the revolutionaries back to California. The San Francisco Chronicle says of this novel, "American Woman, with its historical acuity and sprawling interior intimacy, further confirms that Susan Choi is a writer of scope, ambition and undeniable talent -- the kind of rare writer whose career you want to watch develop over the course of a lifetime."
Evidence of Things Unseen
by Marianne Wiggins
In Evidence of Things Unseen, Ray Foster's passion is light, whether bioluminescence, starlight, or X-rays. He returns home from World War I and falls in love with Opal, seeing her for the first time through her father's glass blowing tube. Ray's best friend from the war, Flash, gets in trouble and Ray and Opal are forced to move to Tennessee. Ray gets a job with the TVA and takes a portable X-ray machine to county fairs to show people the bones in Opal's feet, and eventually works on the atomic bomb project at Oak Ridge. It is this passion for things unseen that eventually brings tragedy to their lives, and harbors ill for all of humanity. Marianne Wiggins's novel has received many positive reviews. The Los Angeles Times says, "Wiggins' voice remains triumphantly her own. Evidence of Things Unseen becomes a love story lit up by the heavens."
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