Claire Marvel: A Novel [Hardcover]

John Burnham Schwartz (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 19, 2002

With the publication of his second novel, Reservation Road, John Burnham Schwartz established himself as a superb storyteller as well as a writer of extraordinary grace and stunning perception. The novel was hailed by Rosellen Brown as a "shattering book, imagined with startling emotional precision and generosity." And the New York Times Book Review called it "a triumph of form, pacing and power." Now, with Claire Marvel, Schwartz brings readers into a world so real and beautifully drawn that one does not want the story to end.

A chance meeting in a rainstorm becomes a defining moment of transforming emotion for graduate students Claire Marvel and Julian Rose, two people whose hearts have long been protected behind walls of wit, intelligence, and innate caution. Neither could imagine what lies in store for them: the unexpected unfolding over a dozen years of a great and difficult love.

Moving between Cambridge, Massachusetts, New York City, and the hushed, timeless countryside of France, John Burnham Schwartz explores the many aspects of emotional commitment and the fear of giving oneself to another -- in father-son relationships, in marriage, and in the ecstasy and elation of an elusive but compelling passion. Here is a novel that plumbs with wisdom and compassion the hidden regrets, enduring hopes, and guiding mysteries of a bond stronger than reason. Masterfully written, Claire Marvel is a love story for our time, and a brilliant achievement.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Die-hard romantics will find it hard to resist John Burnham Schwartz's novel Claire Marvel. Reminiscent of Erich Segal's Love Story, this is the tale of a great yet tragic love, one foretold in the novel's first sentence: "There was before her and now there is after her, and that is the difference in my life." Boy (Julian Rose) meets beautiful girl (Claire Marvel) in a spring shower in 1985 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where they attend Harvard as graduate students. They fall in love and spend a difficult yet idyllic time in the French countryside, but she is stolen away by Julian's treacherously suave advisor. Julian flees Boston for his hometown of New York City, where he starts a new life. He and Claire encounter each other again years later, and eventually Claire comes back to Julian, but only indirectly, again in France. --Susan Biskeborn

From Publishers Weekly

Not since Love Story wallowed shamelessly in schmaltz has a novel cast such a sentimental haze over college romance as this third novel by Schwartz (Bicycle Days; Reservation Road). Julian Rose, a Ph.D. candidate in political science at Harvard in the '80s, is at the beginning of what might be a brilliant career, having just signed on as assistant to his dissertation adviser, Carl Davis, a schmoozer with the powers that be in the Reagan administration. On the way to his first official meeting with Davis, Julian is caught in a downpour and offered shelter under an umbrella by Claire Marvel, a lovely if capricious art history student. Claire, whose father is dying of cancer, is in no shape to begin a relationship, but she and Julian slowly drift toward each other. A stay in a country house in France is the highlight of their time together, but a series of misunderstandings causes things to go downhill, until Julian catches Davis and Claire together. The unthinkable happens: she marries Davis. Even her marriage can't keep Julian and Claire apart, but when Claire discovers she is pregnant with Davis's child, Julian decides he must leave her for good. Retreating to New York City, where he grew up, he embarks on a career teaching political science at his old prep school and marries another woman, the cool, safe Laura. He meets Claire once in 11 years; one day he hears of her death. Schwartz's tearjerker plot is delivered in velvety, sometimes unctuous prose, and the progress of its protagonists' star-crossed love is contrived, but Schwartz rescues his novel from burnished banality with a number of small, spot-on observations that briefly and unexpectedly lift the story above its conventional moorings. Author tour. (Feb. 19)
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Nan A. Talese; 1st edition (February 19, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 038550344X
• ISBN-13: 978-0385503440
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,968,629 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

John Burnham Schwartz grew up in New York City. At Harvard College, he majored in Japanese studies, and upon graduation accepted a position with a prominent Wall Street investment bank, before finally turning the position down after selling his first novel. That book, BICYCLE DAYS, a coming of age story about a young American man in Japan, was published in 1989 on his 24th birthday. It went on to become a critically acclaimed bestseller.

RESERVATION ROAD, his second novel about a family tragedy and its aftermath, published in 1998, was also critically acclaimed and a bestseller, and in 2007 it was made into a major motion picture based on Schwartz's screenplay. The film starred Joaquin Phoenix, Mark Ruffalo, Jennifer Connelly, and was directed by Terry George.

Schwartz went on to publish CLAIRE MARVEL, a love story set in America and France, and, in 2008, THE COMMONER, a novel inspired by the lives of the current empress and crown princess of Japan. Spanning seventy years of modern Japanese history and looking deep into the secret, ancient world of the Japanese Imperial Family, THE COMMONER has won Schwartz the best reviews and sales of his career.

In July of 2011, Random House will publish Schwartz's fifth novel, NORTHWEST CORNER, which picks up the lives of some of the characters from RESERVATION ROAD twelve years later. NORTHWEST CORNER is an urgent, powerful story about family bonds that can never be broken and the wayward roads that lead us back to those we love.

Schwartz's work has been translated into more than 20 languages. He is a recipient of a Lyndhurst Prize for mastery in the art of fiction, and his journalism has appeared widely in such publications as The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, The Boston Globe, and Vogue.

Since writing the script for Reservation Road, Schwartz has become an accomplished screenwriter as well as a novelist. He has written screen adaptations of New York Times editor Dana Canedy's memoir "A Journal for Jordan," and Nancy Horan's bestselling novel Loving Frank for Sony Pictures and Lionsgate, respectively. He is currently creating a dramatic television series for Showtime, inspired by Den of Thieves, James Stewart's acclaimed account of the insider-trading corruption scandal of the 1980s.

Schwartz has taught fiction writing at Harvard, The University of Iowa Writers' Workshop, and Sarah Lawrence College, and he is the literary director of the Sun Valley Writers' Conference, one of the leading literary festivals in the United States.

He lives in Brooklyn, NY with his wife, screenwriter and food writer Aleksandra Crapanzano, and their son, Garrick.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars AN EXEMPLARY ACHIEVEMENT, April 19, 2002

By 

Gail Cooke (TX, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Claire Marvel: A Novel (Hardcover)

Simply put "Claire Marvel" is a triumph. A love story rendered in singing prose it is compelling and heartrending, exciting and true.

"There was before her and now there is after her," it begins, " and that is the difference in my life."

Two Harvard graduate students meet by chance on a rainy day. Claire offers Julian cover beneath her umbrella, a chance encounter which will forever change them both.

They are very much alike these two, although each puzzles the other. They are drawn to one another, a love affair begins yet it is as if their bodies have connected but not their souls. After a time Claire asks Julian to join her in France but their idyll is short-lived. Upon returning to the United States she chooses to marry someone else. Nonetheless, the connection between Julian and Claire remains, a link that influences the future even after Julian, too, marries another.

It is in the exploration of this abiding connectedness that the novel glows, contemplating what might have been, pondering deathless hope, and probing the impenetrable workings of the human heart.

"Claire Marvel" is an exemplary achievement. Read it and rejoice; read it and weep.

- Gail Cooke

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Beautifully Written Novel - Much More Than A Love Story!, March 11, 2004

By 

Jana L. Perskie "ceruleana" (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Claire Marvel: A Novel (Paperback)

"Claire Marvel" is a simple love story told with extraordinary grace. Author John Burnham Schwartz writes with spare elegant prose about disparate characters who come together for a time, to love and to betray. But "Claire Marvel" is also a character study and a commentary on how insecurity, poor timing and lack of decisiveness can destroy the closest relationships. It delves into the consequences of action and lack of action, the ability to be courageous in life, to act on conscience, and the growth of character.

Claire Marvel and Julian Rose meet serendipitously during a rain storm. He seeks cover at the Fogg Art Museum where Claire is waiting for the rain to abate under an umbrella the color of buttercups. The two are graduate students at Harvard, he in political science, she in art, studying the Pre-Raphaelites. Claire is a free spirit, very visual, absorbed by images, color and line with an artist's sensibility - much more than that of an art historian. She is a "traveler who through circuitous wandering had stumbled upon an unchartered place beyond explanation." Julian is a believer of empirical truth. "It is hard for him to bump up against anything without immediately supplying or reaching for definition." They both carry the baggage of their dysfunctional families. And yet they are kindred spirits and come together effortlessly.

Claire's father is dying and asks her to spend some time in France at a small house in the countryside where he had spent some of the happiest moments of his life. She asks Julian to accompany her. Their time together is idyllic. However, flaws in Julian's character cause problems and missed opportunities. The novel explores his past and the reasons for his development as a passive, almost cowardly, man. So the novel becomes much more than a love story.

I found the parts of the novel dealing with Julian's relationship with his doctorial advisor to be fascinating. Julian is writing a dissertation on the various incarnations of the Progressive Party. His advisor, Carl Davis, is a powerful professor with close ties to Ronald Regan and the Republican Party. Julian disagrees with Davis' politics but is drawn to his authority and powerful presence. This relationship play a major part in the storyline.

Some critics have compared "Claire Marvel" to Erich Segal's novel "Love Story." The only commonalties I found are that Julian and Claire attend Harvard and live in Cambridge for a period. There is little "schmaltz" or sentimentality here. The prose and the author's use of language is often quite beautiful. The tension is taut, as the story unfolds through memory and direct confrontation with the past. I was very moved by the author's compassionate exploration of relationships, passion, regret and loss. Bravo John Burnham Schwartz!
JANA

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Claire Marvel--An Obsession, March 16, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Claire Marvel: A Novel (Hardcover)

I admit to some trepidation in picking up a book that is marketed as a love story. But I have to confess, that after I'd read 30 pages of Claire Marvel, I could not stop reading it. Despite having to juggle family and other obligations, I finished it in one weekend, although I savored the images and feelings for weeks afterwards. I was even tempted to read it again, immediately, something I never do. In short, I was obsessed with Claire Marvel. And I'm not the only one. My husband and most of my friends who have read it have become obsessed by Claire as well. This book really makes the reader feel love--in all of its glory, ambiguity and agony--in a way that no other book I have read before does. Put this book at the top of your list, but be warned that it may become an obsession.