A World Away: A Novel [Hardcover]

Stewart O'Nan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 15, 1998

A major new novel by the award-winning author recently named by Granta as one of America's best young writers.Set at a remote beachfront cottage in the Hamptons one summer during the Second World War, A World Away follows the fortunes of the Langer family, whose oldest son, Rennie, is missing in action in the Pacific theater. As we are soon aware, there is another battle raging at the same time, this one on the domestic front, as Anne and James Langer's marriage begins to unravel. In part to repay her husband for his affair with a student, Anne begins a clandestine romance with a soldier stationed at a nearby base. Yet all the passion and terness she finds with her lover is unable to ease Anne's empty ache from having her family torn apart.

Thousands of miles away, Rennie is wounded in the effort to drive the Japanese from the island of Attu in the Aleutians, as Dorothy, his young wife, gives birth alone in San Diego. When Rennie comes home, his spirit as wounded as his body, it's clear that James and Anne must repair their own broken lives if they're going to help their son heal and bring their family back together. A World Away is a rich, romantic story that has all the depth and generosity of spirit Stewart O'Nan's work is known for.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Set against the backdrop of World War II, Stewart O'Nan's book A World Away is a graceful exploration of a family facing a series of devastating events. Stripped of the ideal touchstones of domestic life--an accepting community, fidelity, a country at peace--the Langers take up temporary residence in Long Island with James's dying father. There each family member drifts into emotional isolation, fueled by uncertainty and worry. At the center of the storm is James, a former high school teacher "on the wrong side of fifty" who has committed the classic middle-aged sin of falling in love with a student, and his wife, Anne, angry and resentful at having been emotionally erased. Their oldest son, Rennie, has finally enlisted and is now a medic on the Pacific front, while his younger brother, Jay, haunted by violent dreams, imagines Rennie's face on the body of every dead Newsreel soldier. Another newer, and not quite accepted, member of the family, Rennie's teenage war bride, Dorothy, brings a poignant edge to the novel as we follow her to San Diego where she lives, alone and frightened, waiting for the birth of their child.

O'Nan's clean prose is a pleasure to read, and he infuses his characters' world with a quiet sensitivity, deftly capturing their loneliness. A World Away is a gentle and thoroughly compassionate portrait of a family stunned by change, struggling to regain its balance and its heart. Just as the Langers have no way of knowing if Rennie will come home, they are even more uncertain if they can, or will, return to each other. --Marianne Painter

From Publishers Weekly

Granta-listed O'Nan (Snow Angels) fulfills his promise with this affecting and nuanced examination of family alliances tested by infidelity, illness and the pervasive impact of WWII. James Langer, repentant over an affair with one of his high-school students, tries to reconcile himself with his wife, Anne, who responds with silence, fury and a lover of her own. Some rapprochement seems less possible yet all the more necessary as the strain on the marriage increases. As the novel opens, the couple and their tepidly unhappy adolescent son, Jay, have come to the Hamptons to care for James's father, felled by a stroke. Yet the wound that runs deepest is the uncertain fate of their older son, Rennie, a former conscientious objector who became a medic and is now missing in action in the Pacific. The potential for melodrama increases as Rennie's wife, Dorothy, joins the family in the Hamptons after giving birth to their child. Yet O'Nan avoids that pitfall by focusing on the continually shifting tensions and alliances that animate the family: Anne's ambivalence about forgiving her husband; James's anxieties about the damaged family around him; and young Jay's growing confidence as he cares for his ailing grandfather. The narrative's subtle balance falters a bit with Rennie's homecoming; frustratingly, O'Nan holds the returned soldier somewhat aloof from the reader, rigorously keeping the focus on James and Ann. Still, this is a compassionate, acutely observant and deftly understated novel that evokes the longings that tug at one's heart as it unfurls in elegant prose. 30,000 first printing; author tour.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.; 1st edition (June 15, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805057749
• ISBN-13: 978-0805057744
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,196,136 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Stewart O'Nan's award-winning fiction includes Snow Angels, A Prayer for the Dying, Last Night at the Lobster, and Emily, Alone. Granta named him one of America's Best Young Novelists. He lives in Pittsburgh.

www.stewart-onan.com

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A gentle story line worthy of a reader's investment, January 10, 2002

By 

Janice M. Hansen (California United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A World Away: A Novel (Paperback)

This is the kind of novel that may challenge a reader's investment. It is a book worthy of reading, but one that may take deeper reflection and patience for the story line and time period to assimilate. For some one that lived in this time, I imagine it could be an entirely different experience. O'Nan has obviously researched the era; the references to war events, the battles in Alaska, the names of songs and radio stations could bring back potent memories to the right persons. Even though it is not a time period I am intimately familiar to, I did feel caught up in much of the storyline.

The novel is subtle. Unlike many war stories, it concentrates on the family left at home. The war did not stop people from living their lives, making mistakes, having affairs and coping with the usual events any family must deal with. The investment the reader must make is to be patient enough to allow the characters to reveal themselves and for the gentle ambience so well presented by the author to enhance the story.

The story may not be as gripping as is the feel of the book, the emotional and crystal reminisces of the characters and the incredibly unique years of WWII.

4.0 out of 5 stars Family, friends, and war, January 29, 2001

By 

Barbara "Queen of her castle AND her home lib... (beautiful Charleston, SC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A World Away: A Novel (Hardcover)

The young men go away to war but family and life still goes on.
The story shifts from one era to another to give the reader an idea of how a veteran feels while at war and again when they are back at home, many years later.
This is a story of the effects and the memory of war and the lost innocense of young men. The sadness that stays with a war veteran during his daydreaming of fighting and fear.
A very worthwhile book to read.
A lot of different emotions and outcomes are entwined through this story of family, love, and war.

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, June 20, 1998

By 

D. C. Carrad "augustabookman" (Augusta, GA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: A World Away: A Novel (Hardcover)

A fine, subtle, well-written book by one of the best authors in America. He understands families, war, and beautiful prose. Ignore negative reviews; you won't be disappointed. Also recommend The Names of the Dead -- a very different, but equally or more compelling book.