{"title":"Howard Norman","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"my-darling-detective","title":"My Darling Detective","description":"“[An] ingeniously plotted novel . . . Norman knows how to weave an enticing and satisfying mystery, one tantalizing thread at a time.” — \u003cem\u003eNew York Times Book Review\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eA witty, engrossing homage to noir, from National Book Award finalist Howard Norman\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Jacob Rigolet, soon-to-be former assistant to a wealthy art collector, looks up from his seat at an auction—his mother, former head librarian at the Halifax Free Library, is walking almost casually up the aisle. Before a stunned audience, she flings an open jar of ink at master photographer Robert Capa’s \u003cem\u003eDeath on a Leipzig Balcony.\u003c\/em\u003e Jacob’s police detective fiancée is assigned to the ensuing interrogation.\u003cbr\u003e                   \u003cem\u003eMy Darling Detective\u003c\/em\u003e delivers a fond nod to classic noir, as Jacob’s understanding of the man he has always assumed to be his father unravels against the darker truth of Robert Emil, a police officer suspected of murdering two Jewish residents during an upswing of anti-Semitism in 1945. The denouement, involving a dire shootout and an emergency delivery—it’s the second Rigolet to be born in the Halifax library in a three decades—is Howard Norman at his uncannily moving best.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “Norman works with an offhand ease and grace . . . Whimsy is balanced by moments of powerfully evoked realism.” — \u003cem\u003eWashington Post\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “An unconventional, lively literary mystery.” — \u003cem\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/em\u003e","brand":"Howard Norman","offers":[{"title":"Trade Paperback","offer_id":53149405872419,"sku":"9781328916273","price":11.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0930\/2258\/5123\/files\/9781328916273.jpg?v=1741145716"},{"product_id":"what-is-left-the-daughter","title":"What Is Left The Daughter","description":"\u003cp\u003eHoward Norman, widely regarded as one of this country’s finest novelists, returns to the mesmerizing fictional terrain of his major books—\u003ci\u003eThe Bird Artist\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Museum Guard\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eThe Haunting of L\u003c\/i\u003e—in this erotically charged and morally complex story. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSeventeen-year-old Wyatt Hillyer is suddenly orphaned when his parents, within hours of each other, jump off two different bridges—the result of their separate involvements with the same compelling neighbor, a Halifax switchboard operator and aspiring actress. The suicides cause Wyatt to move to small-town Middle Economy to live with his uncle, aunt, and ravishing cousin Tilda. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSetting in motion the novel’s chain of life-altering passions and the wartime perfidy at its core is the arrival of the German student Hans Mohring, carrying only a satchel. Actual historical incidents—including a German U-boat’s sinking of the Nova Scotia–Newfoundland ferry \u003ci\u003eCaribou\u003c\/i\u003e, on which Aunt Constance Hillyer might or might not be traveling—lend intense narrative power to Norman’s uncannily layered story. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWyatt’s account of the astonishing—not least to him— events leading up to his fathering of a beloved daughter spills out twenty-one years later. It’s a confession that speaks profoundly of the mysteries of human character in wartime and is directed, with both despair and hope, to an audience of one. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAn utterly stirring novel. This is Howard Norman at his celebrated best.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Howard Norman","offers":[{"title":"Trade Paperback","offer_id":53150176641315,"sku":"9780547521824","price":11.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0930\/2258\/5123\/files\/9780547521824.jpg?v=1741148212"},{"product_id":"the-ghost-clause","title":"The Ghost Clause","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eNational Book Award finalist Howard Norman delivers another “provocative . . . haunting”* novel, this time set in a Vermont village and featuring a missing child, a newly married private detective, and a highly relatable ghost.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e *Janet Maslin, \u003cem\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e Simon Inescort is no longer bodily present in his marriage. It’s been several months since he keeled over the rail of a Nova Scotia–bound ferry, a massive heart attack to blame. Simon's widow, Lorca Pell, has sold their farmhouse to newlyweds Zachary and Muriel—after revealing that the deed contains a “ghost clause,” an actual legal clause, not unheard of in Vermont, allowing for reimbursement if a recently purchased home turns out to be haunted.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e In fact, Simon finds himself still at home: “Every waking moment, I'm astonished I have any consciousness . . . What am I to call myself now, a revenant?” He spends time replaying his marriage in his own mind, as if in poignant reel-to-reel, while also engaging in occasionally intimate observation of the new homeowners. But soon the crisis of a missing child, a local eleven-year-old, threatens the tenuous domestic equilibrium, as the weight of the case falls to Zachary, a rookie private detective with the Green Mountain Agency. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Ghost Clause\u003c\/em\u003e is a heartrending, affirming portrait of two marriages—one in its afterlife, one new and erotically charged—and of the Vermont village life that sustains and remakes them.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Howard Norman","offers":[{"title":"Trade Paperback","offer_id":53157001462051,"sku":"9780358305620","price":12.79,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0930\/2258\/5123\/files\/9780358305620.jpg?v=1741169785"},{"product_id":"devotion","title":"Devotion","description":"\u003cp\u003eFans of Howard Norman, the internationally acclaimed author of \u003ci\u003eThe Hunting of L\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Bird Artist\u003c\/i\u003e and a two-time National Book Award finalist, will find in this novel—an intense and intriguingly unconventional love story—all the hallmarks of this masterly writer: sparkling yet spare language, a totally compelling air of mystery spread over our workaday world, and ability to capture the metaphorical heartbeat at the center of our lives.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Like many of Howard Norman’s celebrated novels, \u003ci\u003eDevotion\u003c\/i\u003e begins with an announcement of a crime: on August 19, 1985, David Kozol and his father-in-law engaged in “assault by mutual affray.” Norman sets out to explore a great mystery: why seemingly quiet, contained people lose control. David and Maggie's story seemed straightforward enough; they met in a hotel lobby in London. For David, the simple fact was love at first sight. For Maggie, the attraction was similarly sudden and unprecedented in intensity. Their love affair, \"A fugue state of amorous devotion,\" turned into a whirlwind romance and marriage. So what could possibly enrage David enough that he would strike at the father of his new bride? Why would William, a gentle man who looks after an estate—and its flock of swans—in Nova Scotia, be so angry at the man who has just married his beloved only child, Maggie? And what would lead Maggie to believe that David has been unfaithful to her? In his signature style—haunting and evocative—Norman lays bare the inventive stupidities people are capable of when wounded and confused.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e At its core, \u003ci\u003eDevotion\u003c\/i\u003e is an elegantly constructed, never sentimental examination of love: romantic love (and its flip side, hate), filial love at its most tender, and, of course, love for the vast open spaces of Nova Scotia.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Howard Norman","offers":[{"title":"Trade Paperback","offer_id":53158377193763,"sku":"9780618919741","price":11.96,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0930\/2258\/5123\/files\/9780618919741.jpg?v=1741174104"},{"product_id":"next-life-might-be-kinder","title":"Next Life Might Be Kinder","description":"\u003cstrong\u003e“Norman elegantly crafts a murder story that isn’t a mystery; a ghost story without shivers. At its heart, this is a bittersweet love story, about the hole left in a life.” — \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSeattle Times\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Sam Lattimore meets Elizabeth Church in 1970s Halifax, in an art gallery. Their brief, erotically charged marriage is extinguished with Elizabeth’s murder. Sam’s life afterward is complicated. In a moment of desperate confusion, he sells his life story to a Norwegian filmmaker named Istvakson, known for the stylized violence of his films, whose artistic drive sets in motion an increasingly intense cat-and-mouse game between the two men. Furthermore, Sam has begun “seeing” Elizabeth—not only seeing but holding conversations with her, almost every evening, and what at first seems simply hallucination born of terrible grief reveals itself, evening by evening, as something else entirely.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  “Beautifully and carefully written and unique, its meaning both elegant and elusive.” — Ann Beattie\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Compelling and satisfying. Howard Norman has written a complex literary novel and a page-turner that’s impossible to put down.” — \u003cem\u003eMinneapolis Star Tribune\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Quirky and probing . . . riveting . . . sexy.” — \u003cem\u003eWashington Post\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Howard Norman","offers":[{"title":"Trade Paperback","offer_id":53166711767331,"sku":"9780544484061","price":11.96,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0930\/2258\/5123\/files\/9780544484061.jpg?v=1741200774"}],"url":"https:\/\/epicreads.com\/collections\/howard-norman.oembed","provider":"Epic Reads","version":"1.0","type":"link"}