Carol Shields's award-winning and critically acclaimed "literary mystery," first published in 1987. Swann is the story of four individuals who become entwined in the life of Mary Swann, a rural Canadian poet whose authentic and unique voice is discovered only hours before her husband hacks her to pieces.Who is Mary Swann? And how could she have produced these works of genius in almost complete isolation? Mysteriously, all traces of Swann's existence — her notebook, the first draft of her work, even her photograph — gradually vanish as the characters in this engrossing novel become caught up in their own concepts of who Mary Swann was.
Ingo Swann -- renowned psi researcher -- reveals a long-held secret series of experiences with a "deep black" agency whose apparent charter was simple: UFOs and extraterrestrials on the moon and worries about ET telepathic/mind control powers. The agency was so secret that it had no paper trail, and hence no written secrecy agreements. Only the verbal ones, which in Ingo's case expired several years ago. Now, in this era of burgeoning UFO "glasnost," he tells a story of meetings held in a secret underground facility not far from Washington DC, and of being taken to a remote location near the Arctic Circle to witness the expected arrival of a huge UFO over the surface of an Alaskan lake. This book discusses undeveloped human telepathy and contrasts it with the probable existence of fully developed alien telepathy, which may have many different forms. Ingo also explores the fact that we officially know far more than we're admitting about the Moon -- its origins, its atmosphere, its occupants and many other unusual features. Penetration is about one of the means by which we can learn more about those not of this earth (and vice-versa) -- telepathy. Do we have the means to answer some very important questions that many have been asking for quite a long time? Inside this book are the answers to some.
A Good Morning America Book Club Pick! • A bighearted novel with technicolor characters, plenty of Texas swagger, and a powder keg of a plot in which marriages struggle, rivalries flare, and secrets explode, all with a clever wink toward classical mythology. For fans of Madeline Miller's Circe: "The Iliad meets Friday Night Lights in this muscular, captivating debut" (Oprah Daily). The Briscoe family is once again the talk of their small town when March returns to East Texas two years after he was caught having an affair with his brother's wife. His mother, June, hardly welcomes him back with open arms. Her husband's own past affairs have made her tired of being the long-suffering spouse. Is it, perhaps, time for a change? Within days of March's arrival, someone is dead, marriages are upended, and even the strongest of alliances are shattered. In the end, the ties that hold them together might be exactly what drag them all down. An expansive tour de force, Olympus, Texas cleverly weaves elements of classical mythology into a thoroughly modern family saga, rich in drama and psychological complexity. After all, at some point, don't we all wonder: What good is this destructive force we call love?
“My lungs began to burn as I started sprinting. It wasn’t just that I wanted to catch Fritz. I had the distinct feeling that I was chasing him, that I had to catch up with him, before something caught up with me.” How long must we pay for the crimes of our youth? That is just one question Christopher Swann explores in this compulsively readable debut, a literary thriller set in the elite—and sometimes dark—environs of Blackburne, a prep school in Virginia. When Matthias Glass’s best friend, Fritz, vanishes without a trace in the middle of an argument during their senior year, Matthias tries to move on with his life, only to realize that until he discovers what happened to his missing friend, he will be stuck in the past, guilty, responsible, alone. Almost ten years after Fritz’s disappearance, Matthias gets his chance. Offered a job teaching English at Blackburne, he gets swiftly drawn into the mystery. In the shadowy woods of his alma mater, he stumbles into a web of surveillance, dangerous lies, and buried secrets—and discovers the troubled underbelly of a school where the future had once always seemed bright. A sharp tale full of false leads and surprise turns, Shadow of the Lions is also wise and moving. Christopher Swann has given us a gripping debut about friendship, redemption, and what it means to lay the past to rest.
Most books about power only deal with the societal formula of the few having power over the enormously larger powerless masses, and which is mistaken as the so-called "natural order of power." But it is not well understood that this formula also requires social conditioning measures aimed at perpetuating the continuing depowerment of the powerless so that the powerful CAN have power over them. This in turn requires the societal suppression and secretizing of all knowledge about the superlative human powers known to exist in individuals of the human species, but which are socially forced into latency in most. It is broadly understood that power and secrecy go together, but the scope of the "web" of secrets surrounding the larger nature of human power(s) is surprising. As discussed in this Volume I of SECRETS OF POWER, empowerment is difficult if the larger panorama of societal power and depowerment are not more full understood.
Linwood Barclay meets Michael Farris Smith in this Georgia-set domestic thriller about family, vengeance, and atonement, from critically acclaimed Southern mystery novelist Christopher Swann. The bonds of family never truly let go. In fact, its grip only tightens the further you try to run: crushing and crippling. Ethan Faulkner is a precocious child with a brilliant but troublesome sister, a war vet for a father, and a weary mother trying to manage their family. One night a young woman rings their doorbell, desperate to hide from two men who are pursuing her, when one of the two barges in after her. The struggle leaves both of Ethan’s parents dead. Years later, Ethan has a successful teaching career and a budding relationship with a coworker. But he hasn’t quite followed through on his promise to his dying father—to take care of his sister. Susannah is not an easy person to keep tabs on, is a handful even when the tabs are kept, and quite frankly, Ethan wants her to suffer for preventing him from getting to his dad before he died all those years ago. It was a long time ago and Ethan tries to put all of it behind him. But that’s easier said than done. When news of a brutal murder breaks with evidence pointing to Ethan as the prime suspect, all the painful memories of his past come rushing to meet him. Lyrically conveyed with emotion and nuance, Never Turn Back is a powerful story about family, vengeance, and how some actions echo through the years with irreparable consequences.
“A twisting, heart-wrenching journey into a marriage, a gripping thriller . . . Reardon grabs his readers on page one, then deftly ratchets up the suspense until the breathless ending.”—Lisa Unger, New York Times bestselling author Julia Swann, mother of two young boys, is on the phone with her husband, Michael, when the call abruptly cuts out. It isn’t until later in the evening when she discovers that something terrible has happened at Penn Station, where Michael was waiting for a train home. Julia races to New York City to look for Michael, her panicked searching interwoven with memories of meeting and falling in love with the husband she’s now desperate to find. When someone finds a flyer she’s posted and tells her they may have seen her husband, her prayers seem to be answered. Yet as she tries to find him, her calls go unanswered. Did Michael survive? If so, why hasn’t he contacted her? Was he—or is he still—the man she fell in love with? Part family drama, part tragic love story, The Real Michael Swann is a deftly plotted suspense novel with an unflinching portrait of a marriage at its heart, challenging us to confront the unthinkable—both in our country and in our own homes. “Reardon masterfully delivers an intimate, heartbreaking portrayal of a family whose love, trust, and loyalty for each other is put to the ultimate test.”—Rhiannon Navin, author of Only Child
Mary Swann is the story of four individuals who become entwined in the life of Mary Swann, a rural Canadian poet whose authentic and unique voice is discovered only hours before her husband brutally murders her. Who is Mary Swann? And how could she have produced these works of genius in almost complete isolation? Mysteriously, all traces of Swann's existence - her notebook, the first draft of her work, even her photograph - gradually vanish in this engrossing novel exploring the surprising afterlife of a murdered poet.
The steadfast and sturdy Continental Op has been summoned to the town of Personville—known as Poisonville—a dusty mining community splintered by competing factions of gangsters and petty criminals. The Op has been hired by Donald Willsson, publisher of the local newspaper, who gave little indication about the reason for the visit. No sooner does the Op arrive, than the body count begins to climb . . . starting with his client. With this last honest citizen of Poisonville murdered, the Op decides to stay on and force a reckoning—even if that means taking on an entire town. Red Harvest is more than a superb crime novel: it is a classic exploration of corruption and violence in the American grain.
In its centennial year, Marcel Proust’s masterpiece of literary imagination is available in a Norton Critical Edition. Marcel Proust’s seven-volume masterpiece, In Search of Lost Time (A la recherche du temps perdu), has inspired many superlatives, among them “the greatest novel ever written” and “the greatest novel of the first half of the twentieth century.” Swann’s Way, the first volume of the Recherche and the most widely read and taught of all the volumes, is the ideal introduction to Proust’s inventive genius. This Norton Critical Edition is based on C. K. Scott Moncrieff’s translation, which introduced the English-speaking world to Proust and was published during the author’s lifetime. It is accompanied by Susanna Lee’s introduction, note on the text, and explanatory annotations. Marcel Proust was forty-two years old when Swann’s Way was published, but its foundational ideas and general shape had been evolving for decades. “Contexts” includes a 1912 reader’s report of the manuscript that exemplifies publishers’ complicated reactions to Proust’s new form of writing. Also included are three important post-publication reviews of the novel, by Elie-Joseph Bois, Lucien Daudet, and Paul Souday, as well as André Arnyvelde’s 1913 interview with Proust. The fourteen critical essays and interpretations of Swann’s Way in this volume speak to the novel’s many facets—from the musical to the artistic to its representations of Judaism and homosexuality. Contributors include Gérard Genette, whose “Metonymy in Proust” appears here in English translation for the first time, along with Gilles Deleuze, Roger Shattuck, Claudia Brodsky, Julia Kristeva, Margaret E. Gray, and Alain de Botton, among others. The edition also includes a Chronology of Proust’s Life and Work, a Selected Chronology of French Literature from 1870 to 1929, and a Selected Bibliography.
