Reservation Road (Vintage Contemporaries) (Mass Market Paperback)

by John Burnham Schwartz (Author)
Key Phrases: gray leather sofa, Reservation Road, Sergeant Burke, Ruth Wheldon (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
"Explain this to me: One minute there is a boy, a life thrumming with possibilities, and the next there are marked cars and strangers in uniform and the fractured whirling lights. And that, suddenly, is all the world has to offer." This is the voice of Ethan Learner, a college professor who has just watched his 10-year-old son, Josh, die in a hit-and-run accident on a silent Connecticut road.

John Burnham Schwartz's Bicycle Days (1989) received favorable reviews but seemed very much an autobiographical first novel. His second fiction, Reservation Road, however, is a book that resists genres: a tragedy where all the characters are flawed and none are entirely guilty; a thriller where the killer, Dwight, wants to be caught but is too laden with self-loathing to turn himself in; and an experimental novel where the narrative jumps gracefully among three perspectives.

In the opening pages Schwartz establishes strong connections between fathers and sons. Moments before the accident Ethan watches his son standing precariously close to the curb; he sees possibilities in Josh, a shy boy whose musical gifts indicate a sensitivity that is no less present, though more mature, in his father. At the same time, Dwight and his son, Sam (also 10), are rushing home from an extra-innings Red Sox game where Dwight tries to rebuild the fragments of attachment left after a bitter divorce. Schwartz reveals depth in simple gestures--a hand, for example, placed in a hand, only to be self-consciously pulled away. Dwight drives on after hitting Josh, though he slows in a moment of hesitation in which Ethan hears him calling "Sam" or "Sham"--he's not sure which. Out of grief, and with only scattered clues, Ethan begins his quiet pursuit of the killer, a pursuit that fuels the novel to its poetic conclusion. In Reservation Road, John Burnham Schwartz has crafted a lasting work of literature, a page-turner that's also a rich character study. --Patrick O'Kelley --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly
"I wasn't rich, but my life was secure. That had always been its fundamental premise," observes Ethan Learner, an English professor at a small college in Connecticut. Moments later, his 10-year-old son, Josh, is killed by a hit-and-run driver, inaugurating a novel of terrible beauty that charts the progress of grief with concerto-like precision. For Ethan, his wife, Grace, and their daughter, Emma, Josh becomes both a cold absence and a constant, haunting, unfulfilled promise. For Dwight ?the driver who killed Josh?the event stands as more evidence of a significantly flawed life. Dwight is no cartoon villain; with a son, an ex-wife and a history of sudden violence, he's like a lesser Ethan?a poor father who, through incompetence, has killed another man's son. Schwartz structures the book with the tautness of a thriller?Will Ethan find his son's murderer??but this book quickly becomes much larger than a simple revenge tale. Neither does it become maudlin or forced. Ethan, Grace and Dwight all seem ruined by the boy's death, but, like three drowning people, they keep fighting for air?aided by Schwartz's strong, measured prose and exquisitely chosen metaphors (describing his now-troubled marriage, Ethan says, "Our house... a wordless, internalized diaspora... a landscape riven with fault lines"). "I want to tell this right," Ethan says several times during the course of the book. The author's first novel, Bicycle Days, gathered solid reviews but modest notice. With this effort, he seems poised to reach a break-out audience. If a story about overwhelming tragedy can be told right, this novel is?telling it with wise observation and abundant humanity. 100,000 first printing; Random House audio; author tour. Agent, Amanda Urban.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (September 25, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307388328
• ISBN-13: 978-0307388322
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (66 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #190,943 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding; wonderfully observed; beautifully paced, February 5, 2001

By	James G. Greenhill "Jim Greenhill" (Durango, CO USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Reservation Road (Vintage Contemporaries) (Paperback)

My favorite writer is Graham Greene & I almost never get the feeling I got when I read "The Quiet American" & knew I'd end up reading everything the man had written; I got that feeling about John Burnham Schwartz reading this excellent, understated, convincing thriller that succeeds in being much more concerned with the people than with the events without being boring. All the characters, including both boys and both wives, are excellently drawn. The book's just a pleasure to read as a piece of craftsmanship, dark subject matter notwithstanding. The only fault I could find is the somewhat sporadic appearance of the Learner dog, who sort of gets forgotten for a while & then suddenly reappears, & that's a very, very minor flaw in an outstanding novel. I'll make a point of reading whatever Schwartz writes.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "It required a state of suspended disbelief. Otherwise you might go insane...", January 12, 2008

By	Michael Crane (Orland Park, IL USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

It really takes a lot for a book to really grip me these days, especially since I have the awful habit of starting a lot of books and never finishing. Nine out of ten times it's no fault of the writer, mind you. I end up seeing something else at the bookstore and want to start that as opposed to finishing the current book I'm reading. I found no such problem with "Reservation Road" by John Burnham Schwartz, as the book completely hooked me in from the first page. It's a heartbreaking and surprisingly tense work of art that gives you honest-to-god real characters who despite all of their flaws and shortcomings, you care for each and every one of them.

Sometimes it only takes that one random event that can cause everything to fall apart. This happens on such a night when a boy is killed by a hit-and-run. Ethan is the boy's father and cannot even begin to comprehend what has happened. He is further torn apart when he sees that the justice system that he thought he could rely on cannot even bring him the closure he wants. Grace is his wife, and after the accident she is completely disconnected from everyone and everything, not caring about her appearance or her daily activities and duties as a mother to their remaining child. Dwight Arno is the man responsible for accidentally running over the boy, and even though he knows that he should've stopped and turned himself in, he keeps on driving fearing any interruption that'll keep him away from trying to make up on being a good father to his son. Still, that doesn't take away the guilt and the pain he feels for what he has done and he knows there's no going back to normal, no matter how hard he tries to pretend.

The story is masterfully told using three POV's and switches between them. From Ethan's and Dwight's POV, the story is told in first person and from their account and feelings. The POV of Grace is told using third person, which I think is an excellent decision being that Grace, as you'll read, seems to be the more disconnected and distant from everything. Using three first person narratives would've thrown the novel over-the-top and have it become vulnerable to being melodramatic. Because we are given true insights to these characters, we cannot help but feel and care for them. And this is why it is so easy for the reader to get absorbed and lost into the world that Scwartz has painted for us. It's not a pretty or uplifting picture, yet we still read on. There is a lot of tension and suspense, but not from action. It is because we are given the privilege to know and feel what these people are thinking and we have no idea what they are capable of doing. The tension is subtle, but it definitely makes one's heart pound a little faster at times.

Without giving anything away, I do understand why some people might be upset with how the book ends. My advice is that after you read it, you allow the ending soak into you a little. Even re-read it a few times, for if you do you will realize that this is the most appropriate ending. To end it any other way would have been gimmicky or a cheat. Even though some of the critics try to call this a sort of "thriller," it is really anything but that. There were at least five different ways I thought it was going to end, and I am happy that it wasn't any of them. The more I re-read the last few pages, the more I see the brilliance of it all.

"Reservation Road" is a fantastic and epic novel about how we deal with life's tragedies, and how it can bring the best and worst out of us. I feel sorry for the next book that I read by any author immediately after reading this, because it's going to take a lot to grab me the way that this novel did. Stunningly character-driven, heart-breaking and even insightful, "Reservation Road" delivers a painful and dark journey that we know once we start, there is no turning back. -Michael Crane

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An understated marvel, January 25, 2001

By	Steve (Massachusetts) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Reservation Road (Vintage Contemporaries) (Paperback)

There's an inherent problem in writing (and reading) novels which devote themselves entirely to unexpected death and its aftermath, entirely aside from the fact that it's a subject matter which has been done, and re-done, and overdone since the dawn of fiction, and is therefore very difficult to make fresh, interesting or insightful. The major problem is that the author runs the very real risk of dousing the reader with such unrelenting dreariness that finishing the book is almost a chore. As far as novels about death go, Reservation Road is far better than most. It's thought-provoking, sincere, and, for the most part, avoids melodrama. But there's not much new for Schwartz to explore-if grief is a universal language, the theme of personal loss is a literary staple. The ending of the book (I won't spoil it) is somewhat surprising, and emotionally fulfilling at first-until one gives it serious thought and wonders if the author sacrificed reality for the sake of making "a point" about human nature.

Two things save Reservation Road, however, and make it worth reading. The first is the character of Dwight, whose anguish and self-loathing in the wake of the accident he caused is arresting, complex, and unique. The second is Schwartz's prose, which is lucid and engaging-on occasion, it's even downright eloquent. In the end, the novel is an almost perfect hybrid of Jacqueline Mitchard's far inferior "The Deep End of the Ocean" and James Agee's superior "A Death in the Family." It may not be a lasting work of literature, but it's a good piece of contemporary fiction. I would consider sampling Schwartz's work again.