Genre Fiction
![Anthony Doerr - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_a_anthony_doerr.jpg)
About Grace: A Novel
The first novel by Anthony Doerr, the highly acclaimed, multiple award-winning author of Cloud Cuckoo Land, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning #1 New York Times bestseller All the Light We Cannot See, one of the most beautiful, wise, and compelling debuts of recent times.
David Winkler begins life in Anchorage, Alaska, a quiet boy drawn to the volatility of weather and obsessed with snow. Sometimes he sees things before they happen-a man carrying a hatbox will be hit by a bus; Winkler will fall in love with a woman in a supermarket. When David dreams that his infant daughter will drown in a flood as he tries to save her, he comes undone. He travels thousands of miles, fleeing family, home, and the future itself, to deny the dream.
On a Caribbean island, destitute, alone, and unsure if his child has survived or his wife can forgive him, David is sheltered by a couple with a daughter of their own. Ultimately it is she who will pull him back into the world, to search for the people he left behind.
Doerr's characters are full of grief and longing, but also replete with grace. His compassion for human frailty is extraordinarily moving. In luminous prose, he writes about the power and beauty of nature and about the tiny miracles that transform our lives. About Grace is heartbreaking, radiant, and astonishingly accomplished.
David Winkler begins life in Anchorage, Alaska, a quiet boy drawn to the volatility of weather and obsessed with snow. Sometimes he sees things before they happen-a man carrying a hatbox will be hit by a bus; Winkler will fall in love with a woman in a supermarket. When David dreams that his infant daughter will drown in a flood as he tries to save her, he comes undone. He travels thousands of miles, fleeing family, home, and the future itself, to deny the dream.
On a Caribbean island, destitute, alone, and unsure if his child has survived or his wife can forgive him, David is sheltered by a couple with a daughter of their own. Ultimately it is she who will pull him back into the world, to search for the people he left behind.
Doerr's characters are full of grief and longing, but also replete with grace. His compassion for human frailty is extraordinarily moving. In luminous prose, he writes about the power and beauty of nature and about the tiny miracles that transform our lives. About Grace is heartbreaking, radiant, and astonishingly accomplished.
Editorial Reviews
"A beautiful and expansive novel. . . As I neared the end, I read more and more slowly, increasingly reluctant to leave this intricately imagined world behind." ― Washington Post
"One of those novels that works its way into your very dreams." ― Newsday
"This mesmerizing novel is pitch perfect . . . utterly unforgettable." ― Seattle Post-Intelligencer
"A taut, gorgeously written odyssey of heartbreak and self-forgiveness." -- Julia Glass, National Book Award-winning author of Three Junes
"I loved this wonderful book--its strangeness, its obsessiveness, its beautiful sentences." -- Monica Ali, author of Brick Lane
"About Grace celebrates the blessings all around us, whether it's the miracle of forgiveness by our loved ones, or the miracle of nature all around us." ― Denver Post
"Truly beautiful. . . Doerr has a talent for painting vibrant, enchanting scenes." ― San Francisco Chronicle
"About Grace is an extended meditation on the tides and eddies of life itself, spun out in sentences that never fail to thrill, amaze or edify." ― Los Angeles Times
"There's a rapture with nature expressed in prose that sings off the page; an infinitely subtle algebra of resonance and sympathy between minds, lives, objects, light, senses, weather." ― New York Times
"A stunning meditation on chance and pattern, exile and home. Gorgeous, transporting, and deeply, deeply satisfying. Equal parts science and magic (but all of it magical)." -- Karen Joy Fowler, author of The Jane Austen Book Club and We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
"Doerr deftly weaves a tale of one man's struggle to make peace with his life." ― Vogue
"A remarkable novel." ― Times Literary Supplement
"One of those novels that works its way into your very dreams." ― Newsday
"This mesmerizing novel is pitch perfect . . . utterly unforgettable." ― Seattle Post-Intelligencer
"A taut, gorgeously written odyssey of heartbreak and self-forgiveness." -- Julia Glass, National Book Award-winning author of Three Junes
"I loved this wonderful book--its strangeness, its obsessiveness, its beautiful sentences." -- Monica Ali, author of Brick Lane
"About Grace celebrates the blessings all around us, whether it's the miracle of forgiveness by our loved ones, or the miracle of nature all around us." ― Denver Post
"Truly beautiful. . . Doerr has a talent for painting vibrant, enchanting scenes." ― San Francisco Chronicle
"About Grace is an extended meditation on the tides and eddies of life itself, spun out in sentences that never fail to thrill, amaze or edify." ― Los Angeles Times
"There's a rapture with nature expressed in prose that sings off the page; an infinitely subtle algebra of resonance and sympathy between minds, lives, objects, light, senses, weather." ― New York Times
"A stunning meditation on chance and pattern, exile and home. Gorgeous, transporting, and deeply, deeply satisfying. Equal parts science and magic (but all of it magical)." -- Karen Joy Fowler, author of The Jane Austen Book Club and We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
"Doerr deftly weaves a tale of one man's struggle to make peace with his life." ― Vogue
"A remarkable novel." ― Times Literary Supplement
Readers Top Reviews
Pam Cooper
So disappointed with this book, as I loved All the light we cannot see! I got half way through and then gave up. I found the main character very unlikeable, irritating, self indulgent and weak. The story seemed to ramble and I got to a point where I really didn’t care what was going to happen to any of the characters or where the story was going to end up. For me, no redeeming features ☹️
Lucy 😇
I loved all the light we cannot see . but Grace is genius. The writing us evocative and clear. The relationship's are tangible and the main character you want to help with his journey. A must read I couldn't put it down. I now wait for Anthony Doerr next book !
Mind'sEyemjkmoPartri
Well, this was a tough one for me. I loved--really loved--All the Light We Cannot See. I found this book a real slog, despite the glorious writing. In fact, I thought the writing had a life of its own to the point of the author losing himself and his story inside the endless descriptions. From the micro to the macro of nature and obsession. Strange, martyred characters dwelling in idiosyncratic but uncompelling and sometimes even icky worlds of their own. I suppose there is some kind of salvation at the end but it is not satisfying. A very great disappointment, I thought.
TrillianDell Brand
The author demonstrated his writing skills with “All the Light”. But in “About Grace”, his first novel, he was apparently still cutting his teeth. The main character, David Winkler, is a very flawed individual who, while earning a PhD and holding down a job as a hydrologist lacks the social skills to communicate properly or demonstrate the concept of social boundaries. His path through the book relies on his lifelong habit of being irresponsible and making poor decisions that ultimately require him to be rescued by strangers. He is focused on the minutiae of nature (weather patterns and the molecular structure of snow crystals) to such a degree that he is paralyzed to respond to the larger facets of life, I.e. relationships, cause and effect, or moral or ethical nuance. In an unlikely series of mishaps he runs into people who all overlook his shortcomings and support him even as he barely sustains himself. I am not opposed to creepy characters but it was hard to develop empathy or compassion for this dead-beat-dad who ran away from his responsibilities. In general the novel is twice too long. Whole pages are fleshed out with long descriptions of snow flakes, rain, etc. Whole years go by with nothing noteworthy taking place. I wondered when the plot would start but then realized it was all about the poetry and a plot wasn’t actually going to show up. If you loved “All the Light” then I suggest you re-read it again and prevent “About Grace” from tarnishing your opinion of the author
Jessica Sullivan
"Sometimes I can't believe I've been allowed to live this long, to see these things. After everything, after all this, I still can't help but think it is so lovely. Isn't it, David? Isn't all of it so damn outrageously beautiful?" David Winkler is a hydrologist passionate about snowflakes—their variances, their beauty, their delicacy. This is a book about patterns, design and complexities, not just of snowflakes, but of human lives. Ever since he was a little boy David has had premonitions. When he falls in love and has a baby, these premonitions disrupt his entire life. He has constant visions of his daughter Grace drowning, of his inadvertent involvement in her death, and because he can think of no other way to potentially keep her safe but to remove himself from the picture, he up and leaves his family in the middle of a flood. David's journey takes him from his home in Alaska to Ohio to the Caribbean and back again to Alaska. He remains haunted by his past, never truly knowing if Grace is alive, and finally decades later works up the courage to find her. This is a sad and beautiful book about relationships of all kinds: romantic, paternal, platonic. Doerr evokes a strong sense of place with vivid prose about the majesty and indifference of the natural world. His characters are broken, lonely and incomplete, yet they still manage to find beauty and meaning in what they can.
Short Excerpt Teaser
Chapter 1
He made his way through the concourse and stopped by a window to watch a man with two orange wands wave a jet into its gate. Above the tarmac the sky was faultless, that relentless tropic blue he had never quite gotten used to. At the horizon, clouds had piled up: cumulus congestus, a sign of some disturbance traveling along out there, over the sea.
The slim frame of a metal detector awaited its line of tourists. In the lounge: duty-free rum, birds of paradise sleeved in cellophane, necklaces made from shells. From his shirt pocket he produced a notepad and a pen.
The human brain, he wrote, is seventy-five percent water. Our cells are little more than sacs in which to carry water. When we die it spills from us into the ground and air and into the stomachs of animals and is contained again in something else. The properties of liquid water are this: it holds its temperature longer than air; it is adhering and elastic; it is perpetually in motion. These are the tenets of hydrology; these are the things one should know if one is to know oneself.
He passed through the gate. On the boarding stairs, almost to the jet, a feeling like choking rose in his throat. He clenched his duffel and clung to the rail. A line of birds -- ground doves, perhaps -- were landing one by one in a patch of mown grass on the far side of the runway. The passengers behind him shifted restlessly. A flight attendant wrung her hands, reached for him, and escorted him into the cabin.
The sensation of the plane accelerating and rising was like entering a vivid and perilous dream. He braced his forehead against the window. The ocean widened below the wing; the horizon tilted, then plunged. The plane banked and the island reemerged, lush and sudden, fringed by reef. For an instant, in the crater of Soufrière, he could see a pearly green sheet of water. Then the clouds closed, and the island was gone.
The woman in the seat next to him had produced a novel and was beginning to read. The airplane climbed the troposphere. Tiny fronds of frost were growing on the inner pane of the window. Behind them the sky was dazzling and cold. He blinked and wiped his glasses with his sleeve. They were climbing into the sun.
Copyright © 2004 by Anthony Doerr
He made his way through the concourse and stopped by a window to watch a man with two orange wands wave a jet into its gate. Above the tarmac the sky was faultless, that relentless tropic blue he had never quite gotten used to. At the horizon, clouds had piled up: cumulus congestus, a sign of some disturbance traveling along out there, over the sea.
The slim frame of a metal detector awaited its line of tourists. In the lounge: duty-free rum, birds of paradise sleeved in cellophane, necklaces made from shells. From his shirt pocket he produced a notepad and a pen.
The human brain, he wrote, is seventy-five percent water. Our cells are little more than sacs in which to carry water. When we die it spills from us into the ground and air and into the stomachs of animals and is contained again in something else. The properties of liquid water are this: it holds its temperature longer than air; it is adhering and elastic; it is perpetually in motion. These are the tenets of hydrology; these are the things one should know if one is to know oneself.
He passed through the gate. On the boarding stairs, almost to the jet, a feeling like choking rose in his throat. He clenched his duffel and clung to the rail. A line of birds -- ground doves, perhaps -- were landing one by one in a patch of mown grass on the far side of the runway. The passengers behind him shifted restlessly. A flight attendant wrung her hands, reached for him, and escorted him into the cabin.
The sensation of the plane accelerating and rising was like entering a vivid and perilous dream. He braced his forehead against the window. The ocean widened below the wing; the horizon tilted, then plunged. The plane banked and the island reemerged, lush and sudden, fringed by reef. For an instant, in the crater of Soufrière, he could see a pearly green sheet of water. Then the clouds closed, and the island was gone.
The woman in the seat next to him had produced a novel and was beginning to read. The airplane climbed the troposphere. Tiny fronds of frost were growing on the inner pane of the window. Behind them the sky was dazzling and cold. He blinked and wiped his glasses with his sleeve. They were climbing into the sun.
Copyright © 2004 by Anthony Doerr
