Chasing Windmills [Hardcover]

Catherine Ryan Hyde (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 4, 2008

Catherine Ryan Hyde, bestselling author of Pay It Forward, returns with a provocative tour de force on first love—a modern-day rendering of West Side Story born on a New York City subway car and nurtured under the windmills of the Mojave Desert.

The subway doors open and close, and in one moment Sebastian’s and Maria’s lives are changed forever. Rendered in Catherine Ryan Hyde’s stirring and evocative prose, CHASING WINDMILLS is a poignant love story that will leave you yearning for a subway ride that is a fraction as enchanting.

Letting go becomes the purest expression of love in this extraordinary novel by the bestselling author of Pay It Forward, Catherine Ryan Hyde.

Both Sebastian and Maria live in a world ruled by fear. Sebastian, a lonely seventeen-year-old, is suffocating under his dominant father’s control. In the ten years since his mother passed away, his father has kept him “safe” by barely allowing him out of their apartment. Sebastian’s secret late-night subway rides are rare acts of rebellion. another is a concealed friendship with his neighbor Delilah, who encourages him to question his father’s version of reality. Soon it becomes unclear whether even his mother’s death was a lie.

Maria, a young mother of two, is trying to keep peace at home despite her boyfriend’s abuse. When she loses her job, she avoids telling him by riding the subways during her usual late-night shift. She knows her sister, Stella, is right: She needs to “live in the truth” and let the chips fall where they may. But she still hasn’t been able to bring herself to do it. And soon he will expect her paycheck to arrive.

When Sebastian and Maria wind up on the same train, their eyes meet across the subway car, and these two strangers find a connection that neither can explain or ignore. Together they dream of a new future, agreeing to run away and find Sebastian’s grandmother in the Mojave Desert. But Maria doesn’t know Sebastian is only seventeen. And Sebastian doesn’t know Maria has children until the moment they leave. Ultimately, Maria brings one child, her daughter. Can she really leave her little boy behind? And, if not, what will it cost her to face her furious jilted abuser?

In this tremendously moving novel, Catherine Ryan Hyde shows us how two people trapped by life’s circumstances can break free and find a place in the world where love is genuine and selfless.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In the simple and captivating latest from Pay It Forward author Hyde, a chance encounter proves life-changing for two lonely New York City subway riders. Four months shy of 18, Sebastian Mundt has been held a virtual prisoner by his father since his mother died: his father home-schools him and doesn't let him have outside relationships. One night, with his father heavily sedated by his sleeping pill, Sebastian sneaks out to ride the subway and locks eyes with Maria Arquette, a young mother who is caught in an abusive marriage. The two share an instant connection and take to meeting on the subway almost nightly and tentatively planning a future in the California desert town that Sebastian remembers from childhood, where thousands of windmills stretch out across the horizon. Hyde gracefully alternates between Sebastian's and Maria's perspectives with gentle nods to this New York love story's precursors (Maria obsessively watches West Side Story). It is their voices—at once utterly credible and heartbreakingly naïve—that make the book, and while this is being billed as an adult novel, its closest stylistic relative is S.E. Hinton's YA classic The Outsiders. (Mar.)
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From Booklist

Sebastian is a few months shy of 18, while Maria is in her early twenties with two children, yet they both ride the subway in the middle of the night to escape the pressure of their lives: Sebastian’s overly intellectual and oppressively Luddite father, Maria’s abusive boyfriend and recent firing from a grocery store. When their eyes meet, it’s fate. Though it takes weeks upon weeks before they learn each other’s last names, the subway meetings turn into love. Maria imagines it’s just like her favorite movie, West Side Story. But as everyone knows, West Side Story is a tragedy, and Maria and Sebastian have to free themselves from difficult situations to avoid ending up like the original Maria and Tony. Hyde, whose novel Pay It Forward (2000) was made into a movie, stretches the relationship between Sebastian and his father a bit too far, but the reader will gladly allow it in exchange for the lovers’ tense and electrifying meetings on the subway. --Hilary Hatton

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Flying Dolphin Press (March 4, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385521278
• ISBN-13: 978-0385521277
• Product Dimensions: 5.7 x 1 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,979,647 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Catherine Ryan Hyde is the author of 18 published and forthcoming books. Her newer novels are Becoming Chloe, Love in the Present Tense, The Year of My Miraculous Reappearance, Chasing Windmills, The Day I Killed James, Diary of a Witness, Jumpstart the World and the UK titles When I Found You, Second Hand Heart, and Don't Let Me Go. The US editions of Second Hand Heart and When I Found You are now available on Amazon.

Older works include the story collection Earthquake Weather, and the novels Funerals for Horses, Pay it Forward, Electric God, and Walter's Purple Heart.

Forthcoming is When You Were Older (Transworld UK, '12).

Pay It Forward was adapted into a major motion picture, chosen by the American Library Association for its Best Books for Young Adults list, and translated into more than 23 languages for distribution in over 30 countries. The paperback was released in October 2000 by Pocket Books and quickly became a national bestseller. Love in the Present Tense enjoyed bestseller status in the UK, where it broke the top ten, spent five weeks on the national bestseller list, was reviewed on a major TV book club, and shortlisted for a Best Read of the Year award at the British Book Awards. Both Becoming Chloe and Jumpstart the World were included on the ALA's Rainbow List, and Jumpstart the World was a finalist for two Lambda Literary Awards.

More than 50 of her short stories have been published in The Antioch Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, The Virginia Quarterly Review, Ploughshares, Glimmer Train and many other journals, and in the anthologies Santa Barbara Stories and California Shorts and the bestselling anthology Dog is my Co-Pilot. Her stories have been honored in the Raymond Carver Short Story Contest and the Tobias Wolff Award and nominated for Best American Short Stories, the O'Henry Award, and the Pushcart Prize. Three have been cited in Best American Short Stories.

For more information, please visit the author at www.catherineryanhyde.com

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Catherine Ryan Hyde succeeds again, March 21, 2008

By 

Sylvia Willard "retired public librarian" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Chasing Windmills (Hardcover)

Catherine Ryan Hyde is one of my favorite authors, so it was with great excitement that I read her most recent book. Chasing Windmills lived up to my expectations. Hyde draws Maria, an abused woman, and Sebastian (Tony), an isolated teenager with clarity. As Tony says, he's afraid of "...everything." The reader will learn that Maria is, too.

The degree to which Hyde can crawl inside the minds of her characters is amazing. She made me believe every thought and action of Maria and Tony. Her minor, if there were any minor, characters in this book were real also. One gets the feeling that the old Black woman, who befriends Tony, has quite a story, too, but trust Hyde not to digress from Tony and Maria to tell it. Maybe she will someday.

Tony and Maria eventually meet riding the subway to the end of the line and back. I say "eventually" because the first few times these two are only aware of each other, both too frightened of the world to even make eye contact with a stranger. Finally, they do make a strong connection and the situations they face are both heartbreaking and heartwarming.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Emotional TKO, March 21, 2008

By 

Christian "Writer/Human" (Colorado) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Chasing Windmills (Hardcover)

It's not often that I'm so compelled to write a review of a book I've read as I am with "Chasing Windmills." Hyde, author of several of my favorite adult and young adult novels, has hit a pitch-perfect emotional note with this, her latest story.

With each successive novel, Hyde creates an increasingly rich emotional backdrop against which she displays her true talent: drawing characters that are at once simple in their honesty and their flaws, and tremendously complex in the situations and emotional intensity their choices push them into. It's exciting to see a skilled writer continue to grow into her craft, as Hyde does with style and a deft heart in "Windmills."

Like "Love in the Present Tense," we're presented with characters who have been marginalized in their own lives, and whom are inevitably drawn to one another with sometimes disastrous results. Using the story of Romeo and Juliet, and subsequently the characters in "West Side Story" as the melody around which Hyde constructs her word symphony, "Windmills" hits its stride about a quarter of the way in and does not slow down until the very last page.

Not only was I forced to stop several times so that I could absorb the complex beauty of the story and the writing, but found myself returning to several chapters to re-read them so as not to miss a single thing. More than once, "Windmills" brought tears to my eyes. Hyde is an unfailing expert at creating a story that immediately resonates on every level, hits every emotional button, and makes me feel like a better person having read her writing. "Chasing Windmills" goes on my top ten list of favorite reads.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Magnetic, May 9, 2009

By 

The Compulsive Reader (Big Rapids, MI, USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Chasing Windmills (Vintage) (Paperback)

The only thing Maria and Sebastian have in common are sleepless nights and dull, unhappy lives. But when they're eyes meet on the subway one evening, they form an instant connection. As their relationship deepens, they plot their escape to California, and to a brand new life. But despite their intense relationship and new love, both Maria and Sebastian have been keeping secrets, and when those secrets are thrown into the light during their escape, their love will suffer the blow.

Chasing Windmills is a compelling, insightful, and memorable book throughout. Sebastian and Maria are both intensely real characters and Hyde portrays them in such a manner--displaying their memories, motivations, wishes, and dreams--that readers can't help but fall for them. Hyde's use of imagery is exemplary, and her vivid scenes of bustling New York City to the wide expanses of California and its numerous windmills create a hopeful tone as Maria and Sebastian find themselves, learn how to stand alone, and trust each other. Their journey is heartbreaking, but gratifying, and ends realistically and hopefully. Chasing Windmills is another stand out novel.

Cover Comments: This is the paperback edition's cover art, and I like the slightly unusual coloring to this cover. I think the greenish tinge really works well with the image, and the woman in the photo represents the Maria I pictured in my head better than Chasing Windmill's hardcover art.