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Synopsis
Like many of Howard Norman’s celebrated novels, this intense and intriguingly unconventional love story begins with a crime. David Kozol has assaulted his father-in-law on a London street. What could possibly enrage David enough that he would strike the father of his new bride? Why would William, the gentle caretaker of an estate in Nova Scotia—along with its flock of swans—be so angry at the man who has just married his beloved daughter Maggie? And what would lead Maggie to believe that David has been unfaithful to her?
At its core, Devotion is an elegantly constructed, unsparing examination of love in its various forms—romantic, filial—and of course, love for the vast open spaces of the natural world.
Howard Norman has been nominated twice for the National Book Award and has received the Lannan Award for fiction, a Guggenheim fellowship, and a Whiting Award. He is the author of five previous novels, including The Bird Artist and The Northern Lights, two memoirs, and many books for children.
He lives in Washington, D.C., and Vermont with his wife and daughter.
Publishers Weekly
Norman's intriguing, if at times baffling, sixth novel opens with a fight between Canadians David Kozol and his father-in-law, William Field, outside a hotel in London "on the morning of August 19, 1985." That date is important-it's just days after Kozol's marriage to William's daughter, Maggie-and an ensuing accident seriously injures William, the caretaker of a Nova Scotia estate on the north shore of the Bay of Fundy. The result is a particularly strange domestic situation: Kozol assumes William's duties on the estate; Maggie refuses to see her husband; William vows revenge on his son-in-law. Uncovering why the men were fighting and what separates the young couple drives the plot. Norman (The Bird Artist) uses the avian world as a counterpoint to the human one. William is devoted to the swans on the estate; Maggie wants in her own life the kind of devotion the swans embody. This quirky story deals with a powerful theme: how love endures despite our best efforts to sabotage it. Author tour. (Feb.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.