Rating:
Author: Jayne Anne Phillips
ISBN : B00BSA8F44
New from $11.99
Format: PDF
Free download Epub Quiet Dell: A Novel [Kindle Edition] from 4shared, mediafire, hotfile, and mirror link
From one of America’s most accomplished and acclaimed fiction writers, a spectacularly riveting novel based on a real-life multiple murder by a con man who preyed on widows— a story that has haunted Jayne Anne Phillips for more than four decadesIn Chicago in 1931, Asta Eicher, mother of three, is lonely and despairing, pressed for money after the sudden death of her husband. She begins to receive seductive letters from a chivalrous, elegant man named Harry Powers, who promises to cherish and protect her, ultimately to marry her and to care for her and her children. Weeks later, all four Eichers are dead.
Emily Thornhill, one of the few women journalists in the Chicago press, becomes deeply invested in understanding what happened to this beautiful family, particularly to the youngest child, Annabel, an enchanting girl with a precocious imagination and sense of magic. Bold and intrepid, Emily allies herself with a banker who is wracked by guilt for not saving Asta. Emily goes to West Virginia to cover the murder trial and to investigate the story herself, accompanied by a charming and unconventional photographer who is equally drawn to the case.
Driven by secrets of their own, the heroic characters in this magnificent tale will stop at nothing to ensure that Powers is convicted. Mesmerizing and deeply moving,
Quiet Dell is a tragedy, a love story, and a tour de force of obsession and imagination from one of America’s most celebrated writers.Books with free ebook downloads available Epub Quiet Dell: A Novel
- File Size: 5857 KB
- Print Length: 465 pages
- Page Numbers Source ISBN: 1439172536
- Publisher: Scribner (October 15, 2013)
- Sold by: Simon and Schuster Digital Sales Inc
- Language: English
- ASIN: B00BSA8F44
- Text-to-Speech: Not enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,813 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #8
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Thrillers > Historical - #35
in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Thrillers > Historical - #40
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Historical Fiction > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense
- #8
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Thrillers > Historical - #35
in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Thrillers > Historical - #40
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Historical Fiction > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense
Epub Quiet Dell: A Novel
This book is so promising in the first pages with its utterly gorgeous prose, expertly evoking a time that seems, from the 21st century, so simple and kind. The characters, especially Annabelle, actually glow and, in spite of the serene setting, the doom that awaits is palpable, breathing through the door of the warm home in which these characters live. There were a few paragraphs in the first pages that brought tears to my eyes. If Phillips were able to continue with this near perfect prose, she would definitely deserve the Pulitzer and the novel does contain a fascinating tale. Unfortunately, once the event occurs around which the novel is based, the entire thing falls apart and it's such a disappointment to readers, having been so enticed at the beginning. The journalist who covered the story is now the heroine and the story of the ensuing discovery of the murderer, his trial and his actions are now driving the action. In the meantime, the sub plots thicken and die, their purposes unclear, their actions unbelievable. As soon as the journalist meets the murdered family's banker, she succombs to him completely and falls in love within one paragraph. Come on! The point at which this happens is a harbinger of the tone and content to come: fantastical actions from all characters and events that are interesting only for their very lack of veracity. A street urchin who robbed the heroine and then is adopted by her is introduced and suddenly transformed into a pseudo-son--so we know the unlikeable heroine has a heart and is a real woman after all--and is just one of the many inane wanderings Phillips injects into the book to move it to its sappy and predictable final pages.
"Come with you Emily? Nothing can keep me from you. If he is your ward, your family, he is mine... are you crying? No need." "Oh," she said, "there is need. I love you so and believe in you, and now I love you more, which I did not think was possible."
If this is your idea of masterful dialogue and you have a penchant for stock, undeveloped characters, vapid gauzy semi-mystical prose, and woefully trite "love conquers all" themes set in unbelievable circumstances, this is the book for you. The true-life murders of the Eicher family by the serial killer Harry Powers were terrible events and to her credit Jayne Anne Phillips treats them with respect, allowing us to glimpse the tragedy and emotional wreckage without revictimizing them in fiction (except for some, one hopes, hypothetical yet banal and graphic scenes where Anna Eicher's husband uses her to work out out his repressed homosexuality - something one hopes was a creation of Phillips, though one wonders why it was necessary to the story except as a nod to the belief that contemporary literary fiction has to have something sexually edgy in order to be worthwhile). Yet if Phillips found intriguing news articles, she failed at building a convincing fictional narrative around the real-world events.
Instead we have the fictitious Emily Thornhill, the strong female central character who falls in love with a married man in what must be one of the least believable "meet cute" moments in fiction, the fictitious orphan Mason whose parents conveniently die so that he can be rescued and redeemed by the aforementioned Thornhill, the fictitious fellow reporter Eric, a closeted gay reporter with money and a "droll sense of humor," and the real-life William, the married banker who finds in soul mate in Emily.
-
Download Link 2