Splendid Omens [Bargain Price] [Hardcover]

Robley Wilson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 2004

It's 1993 and Alec Thompson is traveling to Maine, to witness at the marriage of his painter friend, Webb Hartley. When Alec arrives at the wedding scene, he is surprised that no one-including Pru Mackenzie, Webb's 30-year younger bride-to-be-is on hand to welcome him. He soon learns the reason; his best friend has suffered a fatal heart attack, and the wedding is off.

Webb's death sends Alec in search of Jenny Grant, Webb's first wife, to announce the news. The journey takes him from Webb's Maine farmhouse to a northern California horse ranch and leads him through both men's pasts, from college to the present. As he re-explores the events that had bound the three of them-both men had been rivals for Jenny's affection-Alec discovers, in the murky context of those days, that their lives were far more entangled than he had imagined. What Alec learns-and what Webb apparently wanted him to know-cuts to the very essence of the rest of Alec's life. Understanding what happened thirty years earlier is more important to him than ever.

Along the way, Alec's quest introduces him to a precocious twelve-year-old, an ultra-sophisticated divorceé, a Native American psychic. All are part of Webb's legacy for Alec to comb his memory, and the memories of everyone still living, in order to realize the truth.

Vivid, poetic, and written with the same care and craft as the author's elegant short stories, Splendid Omens is both understated and shocking-and a deeply beautiful book that examines how different versions of the truth are like holograms that can re-create a life.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Alec, the narrator of this book, arrives in Wilson's Scoggin, Maine, to discover that Webb Hartley, a perennial Don Juan and fairly unsuccessful artist, has dropped dead while helping set up for his wedding to a woman 30 years younger. The bequest of a painting Alec once criticized and a letter that sends him haring off to California point to tensions in this 40-year friendship, begun when the two men attended Bowdoin College. Secrets from their past drive the plot of this leisurely examination of an unlikely relationship. The book, divided into five sections, follows Alec's peregrinations from Maine to California and back to Maine, with the final section providing a sort of philosophical epilogue in which the narrator expresses noble intentions that one suspects may be short-lived. The first-person narrative is unhurried and introspective. Alec's self-involvement blinds him to subtleties and renders him unsympathetic. This exploration of a tortured friendship and the wreckage left in its wake will appeal to admirers of Louis Begley, Carolyn Chute, and Canadian Alan Cumyn. Ellen Loughran
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

“A tender and beautiful book, written with a quiet mastery that brings to mind Kent Haruf’s Plainsong. From the first eerily evocative scene to the final wrenching revelation, Robley Wilson stirs deep emotions, and stirs them again.”
-T. Coraghessan Boyle, author of Drop City

"It's a story about how little we know about anyone else's life, and especially how that lack of knowledge seduces us into assuming that we understand ourselves. The novel is persuasive, complicated, and lingers long after you've finished reading it."
-Ann Beattie, author of The Doctor's House

"Robley Wilson is an American treasure that a lot more people should know about. Splendid Omens, a luminous novel about the often-ignored complexities of old friendships, confirms what I've known for many years, that Robley Wilson is one of our best and most honest writers. The novel is an odd love story written so gracefully that its many suprises come at a reader with the strangest of combinations: shock and inevitability."
-Peter Orner, author of Esther Stories

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• ISBN-10: 0312321678
• ASIN: B000H2N7FG
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,981,337 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Robley Wilson is the author of three novels: "The World Still Melting" (2005), "Splendid Omens" (2004) and "The Victim's Daughter" (1991). His new story collection, "Who Will Hear Your Secrets?", will be published in spring 2012 by the Johns Hopkins University Press. Wilson is co-editor with his wife, Susan Hubbard, of "100% Pure Florida Fiction", a short-story anthology.
His five previous short story collections are: "The Pleasures of Manhood" (1977), "Living Alone" (1978), "Dancing for Men" (1983, winner of the 1982 Drue Heinz Literature Prize), "Terrible Kisses" (1989, a New York Times Notable Book), and "The Book of Lost Fathers" (2001).
Wilson taught creative writing at the University of Northern Iowa from 1963 to 1996, and from 1969 to 2000 was editor of the North American Review, a university-owned magazine which twice won the National Magazine Award for Fiction administered by the American Society of Magazine Editors.
"Everything Paid For" (2000) is Wilson's most recent poetry collection. His first, "Kingdoms of the Ordinary", was the 1986 Agnes Lynch Starrett prizewinner. His second, "A Pleasure Tree", won the Society of Midland Authors Poetry Prize for 1990. A chapbook, "A Walk Through the Human Heart", was published in 1996 by Helicon Nine editions.
He has been visiting writer at Beloit College, the University of Iowa, Pitzer College and the University of Central Florida, and was a 1983-84 Guggenheim Fellow in fiction. He held a 1995-96 Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting. He now lives in Orlando, Florida with his wife and five demanding cats.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Intriguing Choices, April 4, 2004

By 

Pamela Hans "pambaknj" (Glen Rock, NJ) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Splendid Omens (Hardcover)

This was quite an enjoyable novel with some intriguing twists. I also found the relaxation between Webb and Alec questionable. I wondered if they could actually have remained friends through all of it. I guess I found some of it just unbelievable but it did hold my interest and wonder. I also found Pru to be strange and unreal but perhaps that just because I haven't been exposed to this genre before. All in all, I enjoyed the book and it held my interest to the end.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Splendid Style, February 21, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Splendid Omens (Hardcover)

I have to take issue with the previous review, which is all about plot. Characters and style are what drive this novel. Wilson's style is quietly dazzling, and I found I had to read the book in one sitting because I wanted to know the truth that the characters are driven to pursue. If, like me, you appreciate New England in general and Maine in particular, you will love this book.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars intriguing tale, January 31, 2004

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Splendid Omens (Hardcover)

While traveling to Maine to attend the fourth wedding of his long time best friend painter Webb Hartley, retired literature professor Alec Thompson reflects back on his only marriage that lacked passion and was filled with abstinence until Harriet died a decade ago. At Webb's farmhouse, Alec learns that his pal suffered a heart attack and died. Webb leaves behind a grieving stunned Pru and their small daughter. He also left a request for Alec to inform his first wife Jenny Grant that he died. Alec would prefer not to as Jenny was his only true love. Decades ago in Baltimore, Alec caught Webb and Jenny in a compromising position. He fled before his roommate and his beloved could explain.

Reluctantly Alec honors Webb's wish traveling to Jenny's Santa Barbara horse ranch to break the news to her. A saddened Jenny tells Alec that he was her only love and that what he saw was his best bud consoling her following her discovery of a corpse. He will learn a lot more about their triangle and life.

Though well written, this reviewer could not understand why Alec and Webb remained friends and why if they were best buds didn't Webb force Alec to listen to the truth. Once fans accept that relationships seem unnatural, SPLENDID OMENS is an intriguing tale as each key person and several secondary players met on Alec's quest seem real and add depths to the plot. Alec the narrator is the center of the morality tale as he ponders what could have been if he handled the pivotal moment of his life differently.

Harriet Klausner