Florida: A Novel
Christine Schutt
Aug 2013 · Open Road Media
4.0star
1 review
Ebook
156
Pages
About this ebook
Finalist for the National Book Award: Christine Schutt’s masterful novel—hailed by John Ashbery as “an amazing achievement”—about a remarkable little girl who comes of age, adrift, in the care of a rotating cast of indifferent relatives
Alice Fivey is seven years old when her father dies, and ten when her mentally fragile mother is institutionalized. So begins the “sleepover life” for Alice. Shuttled among the homes of wealthy relatives, retainers, babysitters, and reluctant caretakers, Alice must learn their habits and adapt if she is to survive. But how is she to remain intact after the loss of her parents, whose troubled pasts are invoked to punish and manipulate her? Books help, as do kindly teachers.
Set largely in the chilly Midwest, the vision of a life in Florida, first offered up by Alice’s father as a promise of good health and balmy weather, grows in significance for Alice. She is an orphan, and as such she must forge a home and an identity beyond that of her namesake: her unstable mother.
Alice Fivey, consoled with reading, becomes a storyteller herself, building a home word by word in elegiac, luminous scenes that serve as evidence of the life-giving power of language.
A finalist for the National Book Award, Florida is an elegant, lyrical, and dreamlike first-person portrait of a young artist in early bloom, and a hauntingly beautiful tale of survival and growth told in a unique and unforgettable voice.
Alice Fivey is seven years old when her father dies, and ten when her mentally fragile mother is institutionalized. So begins the “sleepover life” for Alice. Shuttled among the homes of wealthy relatives, retainers, babysitters, and reluctant caretakers, Alice must learn their habits and adapt if she is to survive. But how is she to remain intact after the loss of her parents, whose troubled pasts are invoked to punish and manipulate her? Books help, as do kindly teachers.
Set largely in the chilly Midwest, the vision of a life in Florida, first offered up by Alice’s father as a promise of good health and balmy weather, grows in significance for Alice. She is an orphan, and as such she must forge a home and an identity beyond that of her namesake: her unstable mother.
Alice Fivey, consoled with reading, becomes a storyteller herself, building a home word by word in elegiac, luminous scenes that serve as evidence of the life-giving power of language.
A finalist for the National Book Award, Florida is an elegant, lyrical, and dreamlike first-person portrait of a young artist in early bloom, and a hauntingly beautiful tale of survival and growth told in a unique and unforgettable voice.
Ratings and reviews
4.0
1 review
About the author
Christine Schutt is the author of the short-story collections Nightwork and A Day, a Night, Another Day, Summer. The former was chosen by poet John Ashbery as the best book of 1996 for the Times Literary Supplement. Schutt’s first novel, Florida, was a National Book Award finalist for fiction in 2004, and her second novel, All Souls, was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for fiction in 2009. Her latest novel, Prosperous Friends, is out now from Grove Press.
Reading information
Smartphones and tablets
Install the Google Play Books app for Android and iPad/iPhone. It syncs automatically with your account and allows you to read online or offline wherever you are.
Laptops and computers
You can listen to audiobooks purchased on Google Play using your computer's web browser.
eReaders and other devices
To read on e-ink devices like Kobo eReaders, you'll need to download a file and transfer it to your device. Follow the detailed Help Center instructions to transfer the files to supported eReaders.