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Item Barcode | Collection | Call Number | Status | Item Holds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 33607002394719 | Adult Fiction | SHREVE | Searching... Unknown | Searching... Unavailable |
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Summary
Summary
A rookie paramedic pulls a young woman alive from her totaled car, a first rescue that begins a lifelong tangle of love and wreckage.
Peter Webster pulls a young woman out of a car wreck that should have killed her. Sheila Arsenault haunts his thoughts, and despite his misgivings Peter is soon embroiled in an intense love affair -- and in Sheila's troubled world.
Eighteen years later, Sheila is long gone and Peter is raising their daughter, Rowan, alone. But Rowan is veering dangerously off course, and for the first time in their quiet life together Peter fears for her future. He seeks out the only person who may be able to help Rowan, although Sheila's return is sure to unleash all the questions he has carefully been keeping at bay: Why did a mother leave her family? How did the marriage of two people so deeply in love unravel?
A story about trespass and forgiveness, secrets and the seismic force of the truth, Rescue is a masterful portrayal of a family trying to understand its fractured past and begin again.
Author Notes
Anita Shreve grew up in Dedham, Massachusetts. After receiving a bachelor's degree in English from Tufts University, she taught high school English for five years before becoming a full-time author. She worked for an English-language magazine in Nairobi and wrote for everything from Cosmopolitan magazine to The New York Times. Her nonfiction books included Remaking Motherhood and Women Together, Women Alone. Her novels included Eden Close, Strange Fits of Passion, Where or When, Fortune's Rocks, Rescue, Stella Bain, and The Stars are Fire. Several of her books were made into movies including The Pilot's Wife, Resistance, and The Weight of Water. She died from cancer on March 29, 2018 at the age of 71.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (2)
Publisher's Weekly Review
In Shreve's smooth if unsurprising latest (after A Change in Altitude), EMT Peter Webster is drawn to a woman he rescues at the scene of a one-car drunk driving accident. Webster is well intentioned, but alcoholic Sheila, with her dangerous history, could prove beyond his efforts to save her, though the two embark on an affair that evolves into marriage and parenthood with the birth of their daughter, Rowan. Sheila's drinking, meanwhile, escalates until she causes another accident, this time with young Rowan in the car, causing Webster to send Sheila away to avoid jail time. Years later, with not a word from long-gone Sheila, Rowan is a typically turmoil-ridden high school senior-moody, her grades slipping, drinking-and her tribulations prompt Webster to reach out to Sheila to help his daughter. Webster and Sheila are more type than character-good-hearted man, damaged woman incapable of love-and the paramedic rescue scenes feel mostly like opportunities for Shreve to show off her research. Still, the story runs like a well-oiled machine and should sate the author's fans. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Library Journal Review
Webster, a paramedic living with his parents in rural Vermont, meets Sheila Arsenault when he pulls her, bloodied and unconscious, out of a car wreck caused by her driving under the influence of alcohol. Her glossy brown hair draws him compulsively back, and he steadfastly ignores all warning signs as their relationship develops. Restlessness, a decidedly rocky past, and hints of alcoholism surround Sheila as their affair barrels into marriage and an unexpected pregnancy. An act of Sheila's finally causes their breakup, and Webster is left as the single father of two-year-old daughter Rowan. Years later, he must revisit decisions made during his marriage, as Rowan's teenage years begin to mirror her mother's history. Shreve, the best-selling author of The Pilot's Wife and Testimony, brings her usual balance of tension, family drama, and debatably likable characters to the mix in this story of love, duty, addiction, and loss. VERDICT For Shreve fans and all contemporary fiction lovers, this is a solid read, though not the author's most compelling or dazzling work. Excellent fodder for book clubs; there is plenty to discuss in the protagonists' motivations, decisions, and characterization. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 6/15/10.]-Julie Kane, Sweet Briar Coll. Lib., VA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.