{"product_id":"whisper-hollow-isbn-9781590517116","title":"Whisper Hollow","description":"\u003cb\u003e“Cander is a smart, deft storyteller.” —\u003ci\u003eNew York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFrom the nationally bestselling author of \u003ci\u003eThe Weight of the Piano \u003c\/i\u003ecomes a novel that “like D. H. Lawrence’s \u003ci\u003eSons and Lovers\u003c\/i\u003e, is about love that finds its object, and love that misses its mark.” \u003cb\u003e—\u003c\/b\u003eCharles Baxter\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Set in a small coal-mining town, a debut novel full of secrets, love, betrayal, and suspicious accidents, where Catholicism casts a long shadow and two courageous women make choices that will challenge our own moral convictions.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e One morning in Verra, a town nestled into the hillsides of West Virginia, the young Myrthen Bergmann is playing tug-of-war with her twin, when her sister is killed. Unable to accept her own guilt, Myrthen excludes herself from all forms of friendship and affection and begins a twisted, haunted life dedicated to God. \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Meanwhile, her neighbor Alta Krol longs to be an artist even as her days are taken up caring for her widowed father and siblings. Everything changes when Myrthen marries the man Alta loves. Fourteen years later, we meet Lidia, a teenage girl in the same town, and her precocious son, Gabriel. When Gabriel starts telling eerily prescient stories that hint at Verra’s long-buried secrets, it’s not long before the townspeople begin to suspect that the boy harbors evil spirits—an irresistible state of affairs for Myrthen and her obsession with salvation.“Cander is a smart, deft storyteller.” —\u003ci\u003eNew York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “Sometimes fiction is so good, so authentic, and the storyteller so convincing, that it just feels true. \u003ci\u003eWhisper Hollow\u003c\/i\u003e is one of those books. I’m blown away, honestly. Chris Cander has created characters with immortal souls.” —Jamie Ford, \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e bestselling author of \u003ci\u003eHotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “Like D. H. Lawrence’s \u003ci\u003eSons and Lovers\u003c\/i\u003e, Chris Cander’s beautiful novel, \u003ci\u003eWhisper Hollow\u003c\/i\u003e, is about love that finds its object, and love that misses its mark and becomes destructive, in a community of coal miners. The story’s locale is one where love (for God, or others) is blocked or displaced until that moment when it can finally express itself, in a setting where work itself may be deadly and time may always run out. Chris Cander’s understanding of men and women is profound, and the scenes in this wonderful book will stay with you like a visionary experience.” —Charles Baxter, National Book Award Finalist\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “With memorable characters and a haunting setting, Chris Cander weaves a compelling tale of the transformative power of love in the face of buried truths that threaten literally to explode.” —Ann-Marie MacDonald, \u003ci\u003eNew York Times \u003c\/i\u003ebestselling author of \u003ci\u003eThe Way the Crow Flies\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “A sweeping novel…Cander divinely delves into multiple points of view, crafting a collage of vibrant, layered characters.” —\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e (starred review)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Chris Cander weaves together the stories of varied characters across nearly five decades with skill and grace…A memorable novel about the bonds of town and family, the strength of friendships in unlikely places.” \u003ci\u003e—Shelf Awareness\u003c\/i\u003e (starred review)\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “Chris Cander admirably captures the lack of choice that men and women have in rural West Virginia.” —\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “Cander superbly envisions the town, its residents’ dynamics, and the early twentieth-century immigrant experience. Alta and Lidia are well-developed, believable characters whose mental fortitude and capacity to love linger in the reader’s mind long after the last page.” —\u003ci\u003eBooklist\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “\u003ci\u003eWhisper Hollow\u003c\/i\u003e is wonderful. It’s carefully written, unpredictable, sexy when it should be and scary when it has to be…It channels Faulkner and is reminiscent of D.H. Lawrence.” \u003ci\u003e—The Houston Chronicle\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e“So masterfully controlled is the pace and tone of \u003ci\u003eWhisper Hollow\u003c\/i\u003e that you can swing a pickax without hitting any impurities. Rhythmic and beautiful, \u003ci\u003eWhisper Hollow\u003c\/i\u003e collides Old Testament with sooty coal town Americana in steady harmony.” —\u003ci\u003eAustin American-Statesman\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “[\u003ci\u003eWhisper Hollow\u003c\/i\u003e] is an exploration of well-realized characters, their motivations and their responses to circumstances, written with a literary bent.” —\u003ci\u003eThe Asheville Citizen-Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “\u003ci\u003eWhisper Hollow\u003c\/i\u003e is a haunting novel about the malleability of memory, about secrets and trickery, and about saints who are sinners and sinners who are saints. Cander paints a colorful portrait of a multi-ethnic, multi-generational West Virginia coal camp: a heaven of opportunity to some, a hell of stunted choices to others.” —Marie Manilla, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Patron Saint of Ugly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “The men in Chris Cander’s \u003ci\u003eWhisper Hollow\u003c\/i\u003e toil underground, in the dark and dangerous coal mines of West Virginia. But her women mine territory twice as dark and twice as dangerous, they mine the human heart. Love and loss, devotion and longing, hope and despair, Cander renders all of this and more through the lives of three women spanning more than fifty years. Here is a novel so full of life—of its beauty and cruelty—that I emerged from it like one of those men walking from mines she so wonderfully evokes, like a man walking from the darkness into the light.” —Peter Geye, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Lighthouse Road\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Cander writes with tremendous power and originality. \u003ci\u003eWhisper Hollow\u003c\/i\u003e grabs the reader with an immediacy that does not let go: this novel is inspired, haunting, and heartbreakingly beautiful.” —David Eagleman, author of \u003ci\u003eIncognito\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eSUM: Forty Tales from the Afterlives\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003eChris Cander\u003c\/b\u003e graduated from the Honors College at the University of Houston, in the city where she was raised and still lives, with her husband, daughter, and son. For seven years she has been a writer-in-residence for Writers in the Schools there. She serves on the Inprint advisory board and stewards several Little Free Libraries in her community. Her first novel, \u003ci\u003e11 Stories\u003c\/i\u003e, won the Independent Publisher Gold Medal for Popular Fiction. \u003ci\u003eWhisper Hollow \u003c\/i\u003ewas long-listed for the Great Santini Fiction Prize by the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance. Her most recent novel, \u003ci\u003eThe Weight of the Piano\u003c\/i\u003e, was a \u003ci\u003eUSA Today \u003c\/i\u003ebestseller.Myrthen looked down, seeing only what the lightning allowed—her mother, rocking her limp twin. She looked like she did when Ruth couldn’t fall easily asleep. Outside, the thunder gnashed and roared. Ruth was scared of thunder. Yes, she didn’t like the thunder or the rain or the dark. Mama was comforting her because she was scared, and she should go down and get her doll and give it to Ruth because it would make her feel better, wouldn’t it Ruth? It was so dark outside, shepherds take warning, it was probably almost bedtime and she wasn’t hungry so she must have eaten and it was probably time to go to sleep. \u003cbr\u003e             \u003cbr\u003e“Mama, I’ll get our bed ready,” Myrthen called quietly down to her mother, who was still rocking, rocking with knees bleeding into the spill of blood where Ruth had fallen. Ruth looked so tired, they were both so very very tired, and Myrthen thought she should go and get their bed ready before it was past their bedtime and she heard the door begin to open—Papa’s home—and she didn’t want to be caught up late, it was so dark and Ruth was already fast asleep, so she ran, quickly, quietly to their room and pulled back the covers and climbed inside, and moved all the way to the wall so that Ruth would have enough room when her mother brought her sleeping body in.\u003cbr\u003e             \u003cbr\u003eShe closed her eyes and promised God that when her mother finished her doll that night after the canning was done, she would give it and all the buttons to Ruthie.","brand":"Other Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46299800666341,"sku":"NP9781590517116","price":17.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781590517116.jpg?v=1767744111","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/whisper-hollow-isbn-9781590517116","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}