Sleep Toward Heaven
How do you forgive when you can't forget?
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- £5.99
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- £5.99
Publisher Description
In Gatestown, Texas, twenty-nine-year-old Karen awaits her execution on Death Row. In New York, Franny, a doctor the same age, plans her wedding and tries to resist the urge to run. In Austin, Celia, a beautiful young librarian, mourns her lost husband. Over the course of one summer, the three women's disparate lives intertwine. Karen, Franny and Celia all struggle to find their place in a world where nothing is sure, as they move towards one night that will change them all forever. A heart-stopping page-turner about love and forgiveness, Sleep Toward Heaven is unforgettable. Praise for Sleep Toward Heaven'Ward's no-nonsense, unflinching prose and her complex but never confounding structure make this novel very tough to put down. But her greater triumph is her ability to humanize all these characters.'Pam Houston, "O" The Oprah Magazine'It's funny and sad and redemptive. Read it now. Thank me later.'Jennifer Weiner, the New York Times bestselling author of Good in Bed and In Her Shoes'Women's Death Row as you have never seen it; hauntingly rich, wise and sharply etched.' James Ellroy'How do we forgive the unforgivable? First-time novelist Ward explores this question with a delicate blend of compassion, humour and realism-Her spare but psychologically rich portraits are utterly convincing.' Publishers Weekly
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
How do we forgive the unforgivable? First-time novelist Ward explores this question with a delicate blend of compassion, humor and realism. Three women whose lives converge during a stifling Texas summer have followed completely different paths in their 29 years. The horrendous childhood of death row inmate Karen Lowens led her to prostitution, drug abuse and finally murder. She now longs to find peace before her scheduled execution in the Gatestown, Tex., prison. She resists friendship, as "any connection, any tiny strand, will bind her to this world" from which she so wants to be freed. Franny Wren, Karen's prison doctor, is just as afraid to befriend Karen, knowing that she can't save her. She is fragile, having recently run out on her fianc and her life in New York City after the death of one of her cancer patients, a young girl, left her guilt-ridden and emotionally drained. Franny has returned to her childhood home in Gatestown, where she was raised by an uncle after her parents were killed by a drunk driver. Meanwhile, in Austin, Celia Mills, the only first-person narrator of the three, is the widow of Karen's final victim. She has been sleepwalking through life since the murder, and her stabs at joining the living are touching and funny ("Although my mother disagrees, I have moved forward with my life. For example, I've bought a new bikini"). Ward's celebration of human resilience never becomes preachy, sentimental or politically heavy-handed. Her spare but psychologically rich portraits are utterly convincing.
