Love Anthony [Hardcover]

Lisa Genova (Author)

Book Description

Release date: September 25, 2012

I’m always hearing about how my brain doesn’t work right…But it doesn’t feel broken to me.

Olivia Donatelli’s dream of a “normal” life shattered when her son, Anthony, was diagnosed with autism at age three. He didn’t speak. He hated to be touched. He almost never made eye contact. And just as Olivia was starting to realize that happiness and autism could coexist, Anthony was gone.

Now she’s alone on Nantucket, desperate to find meaning in her son’s short life, when a chance encounter with another woman brings Anthony alive again in a most unexpected way.

In a warm, deeply human story reminiscent of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time and Daniel Isn’t Talking, New York Times bestselling author Lisa Genova offers us two unforgettable women on the verge of change and the irrepressible young boy with autism whose unique wisdom helps them both find the courage to move on.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

After 14 years of marriage and three children, Beth Ellis discovers her husband is having an affair with a local waitress. Feeling heartbroken, rejected, and alone, Beth wants to recapture the independent, creative spirit she used to be and finds the inspiration to pick up pen and paper once again. What emerges is a startling new voice, one that will become a balm for her wounded soul. Newly separated Olivia Donatelli has just moved into her family’s rental cottage. Struggling to understand the unraveling of her marriage, she is also desperate to make sense of her eight-year-old autistic son Anthony’s short life and accidental death. A chance encounter between these two women develops into an unexpected and meaningful friendship, giving one writer the opportunity to find her voice and a grieving mother a chance to finally understand her son. In Love Anthony, readers will discover a unique portrayal of autism that is highly accessible and, at times, deeply profound. Writing with deep empathy and insight, Genova has created an engaging story that fearlessly asks the big questions. --Carol Gladstein

Review

"Fans of Genova's previous novels and new readers alike will find comfort in the beauty of her prose and ability to create profound emotional moments." --Winnepeg Free Press

"Sometimes trying to 'fix' a person is not the answer. Sometimes love --- by which Genova means total, unconditional acceptance, buttressed by a healthy dose of faith --- is enough. That is what this moving novel is all about." --Bookreporter.com

"In Love Anthony, readers will discover a unique portrayal of autism that is highly accessible and, at times, deeply profound. Writing with deep empathy and insight, Genova has created an engaging story that fearlessly asks the big questions." --Booklist

"Love Anthony is a deeply moving story about the power of love and the importance of connection and communication." --Cape Codder

"Love Anthony is not only an imaginary -- and possibly elucidating -- journey through the corridors of an autistic child's mind, but it is also a story about love: between parent and child, between husband and wife, and for oneself." --Sheryl Ubelacker, The Canadian Press

"There’s a point in the narrative where one of the characters becomes so engrossed in reading a book that she loses track of time. Readers of Genova’s latest excellent offering might very well find the same happening to them." (Kirkus)

"Lisa Genova's novels ring true. Love Anthony, like Genova's two previous novels, is beautifully written, and poignant to the point of heartbreak...Anyone who has had even a passing contact with an autistic child will relate. (USA Today)

Writing with deep empathy and insight, Genova has created an engaging story that fearlessly asks the big questions. (Booklist)

“Autism is like a Zen koan—a riddle without answers.., with effects that are myriad, mysterious, and confounding. The same could be said about love. This book upended my perceptions of both conditions, leaving me feeling with my mind and thinking with my heart. Everyone should read this book!"  --Jamie Ford, New York Times bestselling author of Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

"Lisa Genova has essentially created her own genre, the 'Lisa Genova' novel, in which complicated topics become accessible to readers through beautifully-drawn characters and profound, human-scale stories. Love Anthony dares to ask enormous questions, the big questions that bedevil all of us. Better yet, Genova has the wisdom to know which ones can be answered, and which cannot." --Laura Lippman, New York Times bestselling author of And When She Was Good

"Love Anthony broke my heart in the best way! I read it spellbound and breathless. If you don't know Lisa Genova's work already, meet your new favorite writer, storyteller, enchanter." --Heidi W. Durrow, author of The Girl Who Fell from the Sky, Winner of the Bellwether Prize

“Genova's deep and empathic insight once again has blown me away -- particularly her intensely accurate portrayal of autism parenting. Her characters are complicated people, with unique, believable and, sometimes frustrating struggles. But perhaps Genova's true mastery is in the way she never fails to give us very real people to love.” --Susan Senator, author of Making Peace With Autism

"With every line of that last letter as written from Anthony, I wept harder ... My heart, my chest, my throat, my face, my eyes pulsated with something so painful, yet so beautiful and happy at the same time ... and if there is one thing every Mom with a child of Autism should know, it’s the perspective written within that letter." (T. Elaine, Goodreads reviewer)

"It’s not just a good book about autism, it’s a good book that happens to have autism in it." (N. McKibben, Goodreads reviewer)

"In Love Anthony, Olivia is dealing with the death of her autistic young son, Anthony … Genova's writing is getting stronger with each book, in my opinion. I recommend all of her books. I cannot wait to read anything else she writes." (Melissa's Book Picks)

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Gallery Books; First Edition edition (September 25, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1439164681
• ISBN-13: 978-1439164686
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.8 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (258 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #58,880 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Lisa Genova graduated valedictorian, summa cum laude from Bates College with a degree in Biopsychology and has a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Harvard University. She is the author of the New York Times Bestselling novels STILL ALICE, LEFT NEGLECTED, and LOVE ANTHONY.

STILL ALICE spent 41 weeks on the New York Time bestseller list. It won the 2008 Bronte Prize and the 2011 Bexley Book of the Year, and it was nominated for the 2010 Indies Choice Debut Book of the Year by the American Booksellers Association. It was the #6 Top Book Group Favorite of 2009 by Reading Group Choices, a 2009 Barnes & Noble Discover Pick, a 2009 Indie Next pick, a 2009 Borders Book Club Pick, and a 2009 Target Book Club pick. There are over a million copies in print, and it has been translated into 25 languages. It was chosen as one of thirty titles for World Book Night 2013.

LEFT NEGLECTED, also a New York Times bestseller, was the #1 Indie Next Pick for January 2011, the Borders "Book You'll Love" for January 2011, and the #4 Indie Reading Group Pick for summer 2011. It was chosen by the Richard and Judy bookclub in the UK.

Lisa's third novel, LOVE ANTHONY, also a New York Times bestseller, was an Indie Next Pick for October 2012 and a People Magazine Great Read.

Lisa travels worldwide, speaking about Alzheimer's Disease, traumatic brain injury, and autism. She has appeared on the Dr. Oz Show, the Diane Rehm Show, CNN, Chronicle, Fox News, and Canada AM and was featured in the Emmy award-winning documentary film, TO NOT FADE AWAY.

Lisa's fourth novel focuses on Huntington's Disease. She lives with her family on Cape Cod.

Find out more at www.LisaGenova.com.

Amazon Author Rankbeta 

(What's this?)

#65 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Literary

#67 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Literary Fiction

#98 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Contemporary

#65 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Literary

#67 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Literary Fiction

#98 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Contemporary

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 34 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars 41/2 Stars for this Incredible Read About Autism August 27, 2012

By Gayla M. Collins VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

Let me preface that Lisa Genova's "Still Alice" is my top ten book of ALL time. After thousands and thousands of books over 50 years this is a big endorsement. Alice still haunts me three years later. "Left Neglected" is also wonderful and informative. Lisa Genova has become a must buy author for me.

In "Love Anthony" we meet Beth, a 30 something mother of 3 girls, living year round on Nantucket Island. She discovers her husband is cheating with a waitress where he bartends via a scratched out birthday card sent from the mistress. She informs Beth that Jimmy and she are having sex and are in love. Beth kicks Jimmy out and at first hides in her home. Later, she looks for the reasons she is so unhappy and unfulfilled, rediscovering the joy and solace of writing. Four friends aid her in all her distresses; Petra, Courtney, Georgia and Jill, all yearly residents of the temperamental Nantucket.

Olivia has just moved to Nantucket where once her husband, Dan, and their autistic son, Anthony, owned this vacation cottage. Hingham, MA is their winter home. The stress, strain and finances for Anthony's care have torn Olivia and Dan into tiny pieces of nerves. Now their marriage is irreparable because 8 year old Anthony has been killed in a freak accident. They separate; Dan the home in Hingham and Olivia, the cottage. Anthony required intense care from Olivia and Dan plus every type of therapist or doctor they could afford; or not. Olivia is despondent; grieving, enmeshed in an aching pain. She refuses grief therapy, refuses God, refuses any comfort from anyone that offers. She wanders in the perpetual gray of winter searching for the answers as to why Anthony had to be born with autism and why he had such a short life? "Why, God, does any child have to have this affliction? Why was Anthony taken from me when I was just beginning to understand him? *I loved him so, God."

What intertwines Beth's life with Olivia's appears seemingly Divine.

Anthony's voice is given birth through the writings of Beth though she has never met him. She has researched plenty on the autism subjects, met a little boy once at the ocean lining white rocks up in a long line, but never gets his name. Anthony shares what his thought processes are and what he feels when the doctors and parents are working with him. What makes him happy or what makes him incensed? Why the need to block out stimuli? What does he think of his Mommy and Daddy? What does he think without being able to communicate it?

Genova's writing is backed by numerous facts as the author has multiple degrees in neuroscience and works with all sorts of brain disorders. Through passionate prose she opens our worlds to what it is like to be autistic. How it feels to raise an autistic child that has very limited ways of communication, craves confined structure, and repetition with his likes and dislikes. What it is like to be the parent, desiring to kiss or hug their child, when he is unable to handle touching. How to communicate when he is non-verbal? How to understand his motivations when he cannot share that information?

Why, then, if I loved this book the 1/2 star off? As a reader I would have liked the story to concentrate more on Olivia and Beth minus the four friends. To this reader they were distracting gnats at an outside dinner party. No room to flesh them out and give them a real purpose in the story. But this is just this reader's opinion. The book was powerful and informative while letting me enjoy the scenery and action.

Kudos's to Lisa Genova for giving props to one of my top 20 books of all time, "The Curious Incident of the Dog at Nighttime." Such a respectful and generous act. I will have to read the other she mentions..."The Siege" by Clara Clairborne Park.

Recommend

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Lovely stories but stretch credulity a little too far August 28, 2012

By Patricia TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

This author, Lisa Genova, writes very well. Her characters and dialog are very believable. All the action takes place on Nantucket island and it begins during the long gloomy winter. Basically the chapters in the book alternate between two women: #1 Beth, a wife and mother who finds out that her husband is cheating on her; and #2 Olivia who has come to the island alone to grieve the death of her autistic young son Anthony. The women do not know each other but ever so slowly their lives begin to interweave - at first just on the outskirts and then ever closer and closer. I think Ms. Genova develops both stories very well but as their lives get closer, she strains credulity and slips into fantasy with the incredible coincidences and then an almost magical mental telepathy in the way the two stories come together. The stories are both very touching and focus on the pain of a beautiful autistic young boy. I don't care for leaving reality this way in fiction and would have preferred she stick with the strong story she already had rather than slip into fantasy - too much suspension of belief. But nevertheless the stories are poignant and quite enjoyable. It certainly kept me reading.

11 of 15 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The Realities of Life... and Other Unknowns September 4, 2012

By Bob Magnant VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

While I first became aware of Lisa Genova through a friend, I still have not met her but I felt that I actually knew her after reading Still Alice. Although at first glance, her novels do not appear to be on mainstream subjects, she is most certainly a wonderful storyteller. The foundations of her first story completely drew me in and taught me about something that I knew absolutely nothing about, early-onset Alzheimer's disease. While I am too old to be a victim of this condition, I thought that I had written a review of it, but then I remembered that even though I had found her first work to be quite captivating, I had decided that everything had already been said about it by the hundreds of reviewers who didn't forget. Consequently, when I received this opportunity to do an advanced review of Love Anthony, I jumped at the chance and I was not disappointed.

This is another beautiful story of two very different but similar women and the disease, or the condition, of autism, which is set on Nantucket Island. While I once visited the island several years ago, Ms. Genova's descriptions of the places and the people transported me there again and into the lives of these people. Her words have also made her characters extremely real; they are people that you know. Their fears, their fantasies and their flaws have a very personal ring to them that captures your attention and never releases you until her very last words. Her fullness of Olivia's and Beth's characters, like Alice's, provides you with 'realities' that consume the reader on every page. Perhaps it is 'humanity' that is Genova's secret ingredient.

I deplore reviews that do no more than synopsize the story so this is one that has no spoilers. Reading Ms. Genova is, once again, like a fascinating conversation with her about something that we might never have known anything about... until you've met Lisa.

Bob Magnant is a novelist who writes about technology, globalization and Internet security, and US policy in the Middle East.