Reta has enjoyed a loving family, good friends, and success as a novel writer. Suddenly, her beloved daughter drops out of life to sit on a gritty street corner, silent. Reta's search for the cause becomes a funny meditation on where we find meaning and hope.
Everything depends on unless. With one deceptively simple sentence, Carol Shields can open a closed mind or pierce the hardest heart. She creates real people who laugh, ache, fall in love and out of innocence. At 44, Reta Winters has a companionable marriage; three intelligent, loving daughters; and a successful writing career. Without warning, her oldest, Norah, drops out of her comfortable life to sit on a Toronto street corner wearing a sign that says 'GOODNESS.' As Reta reflects on her life, on motherhood, the writing process, powerlessness, and humanity, the splendid Joan Allen gives her depth and dimension. Allen's performance precisely captures Reta's initial anguish and, later, her ironic perceptions and sense of humor. UNLESS is a beautifully constructed Chinese puzzle that leaves us surprisingly hopeful. S.J.H. 2003 Audie Award Finalist (c) AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine
About the Author
Born in Oak Park, Illinois, in 1935, Carol Shields moved to Canada at the age of twenty-two, after studying at the University of Exeter in England, and then obtained her M.A. at the University of Ottawa. She started publishing poetry in her thirties, and wrote her first novel, Small Ceremonies, in 1976. Over the next three decades, Shields would become the author of over twenty books, including plays, poetry, essays, short fiction, novels, a book of criticism on Susanna Moodie and a biography of Jane Austen. Her work has been translated into twenty-two languages. She died on July 16, 2003, from complications of breast cancer, at age 68.
Digital Rights Information
OverDrive WMA Audiobook
Burn to CD:
Not permitted
Transfer to device:
Permitted
Transfer to Apple® device:
Permitted
Public performance:
Not permitted
File-sharing:
Not permitted
Peer-to-peer usage:
Not permitted
All copies of this title, including those transferred to portable devices and other media, must be deleted/destroyed at the end of the lending period.
...
