Where or When [Paperback]

Anita Shreve (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Harcourt (1993)
• ASIN: B0011E900K
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (125 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,585,687 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Anita Shreve grew up in Dedham, Massachusetts (just outside Boston), the eldest of three daughters. Early literary influences include having read Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton when she was a junior in high school (a short novel she still claims as one of her favorites) and everything Eugene O'Neill ever wrote while she was a senior (to which she attributes a somewhat dark streak in her own work). After graduating from Tufts University, she taught high school for a number of years in and around Boston. In the middle of her last year, she quit (something that, as a parent, she finds appalling now) to start writing. "I had this panicky sensation that it was now or never."

Joking that she could wallpaper her bathroom with rejections from magazines for her short stories ("I really could have," she says), she published her early work in literary journals. One of these stories, "Past the Island, Drifting," won an O. Henry prize. Despite this accolade, she quickly learned that one couldn't make a living writing short fiction. Switching to journalism, Shreve traveled to Nairobi, Kenya, where she lived for three years, working as a journalist for an African magazine. One of her novels, The Last Time They Met, contains bits and pieces from her time in Africa.

Returning to the United States, Shreve was a writer and editor for a number of magazines in New York. Later, when she began her family, she turned to freelancing, publishing in the New York Times Magazine, New York magazine and dozens of others. In 1989, she published her first novel, Eden Close. Since then she has written 14 other novels, among them The Weight of Water, The Pilot's Wife, The Last Time They Met, A Wedding in December, Body Surfing, Testimony,and A Change in Altitude.

In 1998, Shreve received the PEN/L. L. Winship Award and the New England Book Award for fiction. In 1999, she received a phone call from Oprah Winfrey, and The Pilot's Wife became the 25th selection of Oprah's Book Club and an international bestseller. In April 2002, CBS aired the film version of The Pilot's Wife, starring Christine Lahti, and in fall 2002, The Weight of Water, starring Elizabeth Hurley and Sean Penn, was released in movie theaters.

Still in love with the novel form, Shreve writes only in that genre. "The best analogy I can give to describe writing for me is daydreaming," she says. "A certain amount of craft is brought to bear, but the experience feels very dreamlike."

Shreve is married to a man she met when she was 13. She has two children and three stepchildren, and in the last eight years has made tuition payments to seven colleges and universities.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars High romance, not yet perfected, April 13, 2004

By 

B. McEwan "yellokat" (Brooklyn, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Where or When : A Novel (Paperback)

While this is certainly not the strongest of Anita Shreve's novels, it does offer some lovely writing and some tasteful, quite sexy, scenes involving its two heroes -- a middle aged man and woman whose affection for one another has been rekindled after 30 years apart.

Some reviewers have asserted that this novel lacks adequate character development. I have a contrarian point of view in that I think Shreve deliberately omits describing the internal moral struggles of her characters because they really don't experience much moral struggle. I see them as being caught up in the powerful flow of emotion, of a love that they believe was destined to occur, and suspect that what drives other reviewers' antipathy toward this novel is not lack of character development, but the characters' lack of self-recrimination.

In any case, I rather enjoyed this book and, as a big Shreve fan, fancy that I can see the budding of her considerable talents in this early example of her work. It is also a refreshing change to read about middle-aged characters who are coping with the effects of aging on their bodies, and the awkward feelings that arise when one engages in a romantic relationship at an age where physical beauty is on the wane. These are challenging issues for many people that are not often addressed in popular fiction.

So while I do not recommend this novel without reservation, I do recommend it to those who have enjoyed the more sophisticated Shreve books and are now down to reading her earlier works while awaiting a new book from her.

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Flirting With Disaster, October 12, 2001

By 

Linda A. Slott "Ladyslott" (Oceanside, NY) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Where or When : A Novel (Paperback)

I am a big fan of Anita Shreve, but feel this is not among her best books. The story of the adulterous affair of Charles Callahan and his long lost childhood love, Sian Richards captured my attention, but not my heart. While one does believe that these two are deeply attracted to each other, there was not a deeply felt feeling of consuming love, which is what they are supposed to have. The tale of the childhood love rang far truer for me than the adult love. While we are given some idea of why Charles and Sian are attracted to one another, their respective spouses are not fully developed, and so there is very little understanding of why the two would sacrifice so much of their lives to an obsessive love affair. Ms. Shreve's writing manages to evoke sympathy for the lovers, and there is an overwhelming feeling of longing in the book, but the conclusion to the story is a jolt, and leaves one with an equally overwhelming feeling of sadness. If you want to read an outstanding Shreve book, start with The Weight of Water, or The Piolt's Wife, which in my opinion were far better books.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars haunting ........., May 10, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Where or When : A Novel (Paperback)

I read this book many many months ago and yet I still can't get it out of my mind. I loved the book so much while reading it ... actually a measure of how much I love a book is when I slow down in the reading of it ... you see, I don't want it to end.

So this small paperback became a book that took me weeks to read. I thought the characters were very well drawn w/the exception of their respective spouses ... I agree with the NY Times review in that they seemed at times to be parodies. And yet ... I was captivated by this book.

Sian and Charles were very vividly drawn ... and yes, I was hoping against hope for them. But as life usually turns out unfortunately ... things don't always work out as you'd like them to.

You may not like the ending of this book ... you may throw it away when you finish it and curse the time and emotions that you invested in it ... but I guarantee you ... you won't be able to get it out of your mind.