It happens that I am going through a period of great unhappiness and loss just now.
An edition of Unless
(2002)
Unless
Open Market edition (3)
by Carol Shields
- 24 Want to read
- 3 Have read
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Reta Winters, 44 years of age, has started a new sort of life. She has discoverd the meaning of loss for the first time.
For all of her days, Reta has enjoyed the useful monotony of happiness: a loving family, good friends, growing success as a writer of light fiction, novels 'for summertime'. This placid existence cracks open one fearful day when her beloved eldest daughter, Norah, drops out to sit on a gritty street corner, silent but for the sign around her neck that reads'GOODNESS.' Reta's search for what drove her daughter to such a desperate statement turns into an unflinching and surprisingly funny meditation on where we find meaning and hope.
Warmth, passion and wisdom come together in Shields's remarkably supple prose. Unless, a harrowing but ultimately consoling story of one family's anguish and healing, proves her mastery of extraordinary fictions about ordinary life.
--back cover
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Previews available in: English French Dutch
Subjects
literary fiction, goodness, Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize winner, Literature, Psychological fiction, Teenage girls, Mothers and daughters, Fiction, Women authors, Mentally ill, Domestic fiction, friends, women, American literature, Mothers and daughters, fiction, Ontario, fiction, Fiction, psychological, Large type books, Literary, Abridged Audio - Fiction/General, Fiction, generalPlaces
Ontario, Toronto, Canada, Bloor Street, Honest Ed's, Nathan Phillips Square, OrangetownShowing 10 featured editions. View all 43 editions?
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01
Unless: A Novel
2009, Harper Perennial
Paperback
in English
- P.S. edition (7)
0060874406 9780060874407
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02
Unless
2003, Fourth Estate
Paperback
in English
- 1st Fourth Estate pbk. ed.
0007154615 9780007154616
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Unless: a novel
2003, Fourth Estate
Paperback
in English
- First Fourth Estate paperback edition
0007154615 9780007154616
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Unless
2002-05, PerfectBound
Electronic resource
in English
- Adobe Acrobat E-book Reader edition v.1
0060523700 9780060523701
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Book Details
Edition Notes
The Physical Object
ID Numbers
Work Description
Reta Winters has many reasons to be happy. Then in the spring of her forty-fourth year, all the quiet satisfactions of her well-lived life disappear in a moment: her eldest daughter Norah suddenly runs from the family and ends up mute and begging on a Toronto street corner with a hand-lettered sign reading GOODNESS around her neck.
Piercing and sad, astute and evocative, full of tenderness and laughter, Unless will stand with The Stone Diaries in the canon of Carol Shields’s fiction.
(source)
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Mood 1
Lonely
33%
Emotional
33%
Melancholy
33%
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History
- Created May 1, 2018
- 7 revisions
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| November 28, 2019 | Edited by Lisa | Edited without comment. |
| March 28, 2019 | Edited by Lisa | IDs |
| March 28, 2019 | Edited by Lisa | Added new cover |
| January 10, 2019 | Edited by MARC Bot | import existing book |
| May 1, 2018 | Created by Lisa | Added new book. |