{"product_id":"held-9781526662538","title":"Held","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e**The international bestseller**\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cb\u003e**A \u003ci\u003eGuardian \u003c\/i\u003eBook of the Autumn 2023**\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cb\u003e**Chosen as a book of the year by the independent.co.uk** \u003c\/b\u003e \u003cb\u003e'Michaels’s writing continues to stand head and shoulders above most other fiction' \u003ci\u003eOBSERVER\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e'Through luminous moments of chance, change, and even grace, Michaels shows us our humanity' MARGARET ATWOOD\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cb\u003e'Michaels is exceptionally open to beauty' \u003ci\u003eGUARDIAN\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e  \u003cb\u003eThe triumphant new novel from the author of the Orange Prize-winning \u003ci\u003eFugitive Pieces\u003c\/i\u003e: a soaring and luminous story of chance and change\u003c\/b\u003e  _________________________________________________  1917. On a battlefield near the River Escaut, John lies in the aftermath of a blast, unable to move or feel his legs. Struggling to focus his thoughts, he is lost to memory – a chance encounter in a pub by a railway, a hot bath with his lover on a winter night, his childhood on a faraway coast – as the snow falls.    1920. John has returned from war to North Yorkshire, near another river – alive, but not still whole. Reunited with Helena, an artist, he reopens his photography business and endeavours to keep on living. But the past erupts insistently into the present, as ghosts begin to surface in his pictures: ghosts whose messages he cannot understand\u003cb\u003e. \u003c\/b\u003e   So begins a narrative that spans four generations, moments of connection and consequence igniting and re-igniting as the century unfolds. In luminous moments of desire, comprehension, longing, transcendence, the sparks fly upward, working their transformations decades later.    \u003ci\u003eHeld \u003c\/i\u003eis a novel like no other, by a writer at the height of her powers: affecting and intensely beautiful, full of mystery, wisdom and compassion.  \u003cb\u003e'I am blown away by the scale, beauty, weave and thinking  of this book ... It dances with words, time and ideas in a way that seems to reinvent  everything I know about the novel' RACHEL JOYCE\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnne Michaels' compelling novel \u003ci\u003eHeld\u003c\/i\u003e couldn’t be more timely: war and its damages, passed through generations over a century. Through luminous moments of chance, change, and even grace, Michaels shows us our humanity - its depths and shadows -- MARGARET ATWOOD, via Twitter\u003cbr\u003eA warm, gentle and powerful novel; a book of moments, reimaginings, forgettings, disturbances and digressions. Anne Michaels has excelled herself once again. * International Times *\u003cbr\u003eMichaels' work ... is ferociously engaged in the fundamental universal difficulties of being alive * independent.co.uk *\u003cbr\u003eMichaels is a writer who moves gracefully between award-winning poetry and captivating fiction – and there is a lyrical beauty to this novel … with Anne Michaels, you know you are in the presence of a real and rich sensibility * independent.co.uk, Books of the year *\u003cbr\u003eIncredible ... Almost hallucinatory in its lyricism ... A novel of ingenious chronological invention based on four generations of women from the same family * New European, Books of the Year *\u003cbr\u003eThere is an intense, mysterious beauty that infuses Michaels' precise prose with a compelling power that is exquisite … a profound literary experience that is executed with subtlety, grace and an exquisite intuition * Irish Times *\u003cbr\u003eStill a master of her universe… dazzling lyrical snapshots recall the dreamlike style of Fugitive Pieces in the poet’s third novel, a fluid examination of history, memory and generational trauma…  The writing is always personal, hypersensitive and profoundly interior… Michaels’s writing continues to stand head and shoulders above most other fiction. At the heart of this book lies the question of how goodness and love can be held across the generations * Observer *\u003cbr\u003eA graceful, timely, resonant reminder of the trauma of war and the wreckage that it inflicts * Daily Mail *\u003cbr\u003eMichaels inhabits episodic moments with a quantum quality * Sunday Times *\u003cbr\u003eA beautiful work … shifting, merging and separating, wrapping itself around the reader * New European *\u003cbr\u003eThe Canadian novelist’s complex, time-travelling new novel explores trauma, loss and the lasting impact of love … Few authors balance the atrocities of history with the consolations of human relationships quite so effectively as the Canadian novelist and poet Anne Michaels. She has an uncanny talent for finding curative connections and restorative emotions in hellish circumstances * Financial Times *\u003cbr\u003eJust as the characters are held by their love for others, readers are safely held in the utterly tactile and emotional embrace of this incredible novel * Quire \u0026amp; Quill *\u003cbr\u003eAnne Michaels , known for the award-winning \u003ci\u003eFugitive Pieces\u003c\/i\u003e, returns with\u003ci\u003e Held,\u003c\/i\u003e, which spans generations in the aftermath of the First World War * GUARDIAN, Best books of Autumn 2023 *\u003cbr\u003eCompelling and well-crafted * independent.co.uk, Books of the month *\u003cbr\u003eShows how pain and loss permeate generations * Country \u0026amp; Townhouse *\u003cbr\u003eA cleverly fragmentary tale of love, memory and time from the author of Fugitive Pieces shuffles the hopes and dreams of four generations ... Michaels demonstrates that fugitive pieces can make up a structure as strong and as meaningful as a finished monument ... Michaels’s intellectual toughness coexists with a tender heart ... Exceptionally open to the beauty of science' -- Lucy Hughes Hallett * Guardian *\u003cbr\u003eI am blown away by the scale, beauty, weave and thinking of this book ... It dances with words, time and ideas in a way that seems to reinvent everything I know about the novel ... and it’s such a transporting read too. It's exquisite - I am in awe -- RACHEL JOYCE\u003cbr\u003eHer stunning prose sustains the book’s enchanted mood from start to finish ... Each page of this masterpiece has a line worth savouring * Publishers' Weekly *\u003cbr\u003eA gorgeous meditation on whether the ghost in the machine is actually in our hearts ... A multi-layered and subtle discussion of what keeps animating the web of existence * Kirkus *\u003cbr\u003eMichaels brings her poet's finesse and soulfulness to this exquisite, deeply moving paean to love and life’s insistence and beauty * Booklist *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePraise for Anne Michaels: \u003c\/b\u003e'Monumental ... The most important book I have read for forty years -- JOHN BERGER * OBSERVER *\u003cbr\u003eAll except a handful of contemporary novels are dwarfed by its reach, its compassion, its wisdom -- GEOFF DYER * INDEPENDENT *\u003cbr\u003eThis is a novel to lose yourself in; let the language pour over you, depositing its richness like waves lapping sand onto a beach. Michaels is a novelist of unusual and compelling power -- ERICA WAGNER * THE TIMES *\u003cbr\u003eEssential reading, both for its exceptional literary craft and for its exemplary and inspiring humanity * SPECTATOR *\u003cbr\u003eExtraordinarily magical * NEW YORK TIMES *\u003cbr\u003eHer writing goes way beyond games or fashion or politics ... It represents the human being entire -- MICHAEL ONDAATJE\u003cbr\u003eHas a quality of crystalline exactness ... A remarkable book * NEW STATESMAN *\u003cbr\u003eExquisite ... There are many phrases to be underlined, remembered and savoured * FINANCIAL TIMES *\u003cbr\u003eWriting of dangerously beautiful intensity ... magnificent * SUNDAY TELEGRAPH *\u003cbr\u003eRead this book like poetry, or rather hear it like music ... Anne Michaels guides us to the top of some extraordinary peaks of feeling and perception * INDEPENDENT *\u003cbr\u003eMichaels is a great poet of loss, and the challenges of memory in the face of it ... Michaels produces passages of lyrical beauty * GUARDIAN *","brand":"Bloomsbury Publishing PLC","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51863353753943,"sku":"9781526662538","price":13.29,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781526662538.jpg?v=1759920379","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/held-9781526662538","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}