The Art of Devotion
Autor Samantha Bruce-Benjaminen Limba Engleză Paperback – 8 iun 2010
Sophie, married to an Ambassador to Sweden at the turn of the century, moves her family permanently to their vacation home on an island in the Mediterranean when she learns that something is not right with her young son Sebastian. When Sophie's husband is suddenly lost at sea during a North Sea Channel crossing, she finds it hard to attend to her children and Sebastian and Adora, always close, become extremely devoted to each other. Shift to the twenties and Adora is now married to her own wealthy businessman Oliver and they still live on the island. Though they are unable to have their own children, Adora successfully woos her ''niece" actually her husband's best friend's young daughter Genevieve or GiGi to spend every summer with them.
As Gigi matures, she becomes enmeshed in a web of family secrets, full of obsessive love, betrayal, and deceit, that leave her-and the reader-unsure of what the truth really is.
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Specificații
ISBN-13: 9781439153949
ISBN-10: 1439153949
Pagini: 400
Ilustrații: rough front, standard paper
Dimensiuni: 140 x 210 x 28 mm
Greutate: 0.41 kg
Ediția:Original.
Editura: Gallery Books
Colecția Gallery Books
ISBN-10: 1439153949
Pagini: 400
Ilustrații: rough front, standard paper
Dimensiuni: 140 x 210 x 28 mm
Greutate: 0.41 kg
Ediția:Original.
Editura: Gallery Books
Colecția Gallery Books
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Notă biografică
Samantha Bruce-Benjamin was born and raised in Edinburgh, Scotland, where she earned a Masters Degree in English Literature from the University of Edinburgh. A former BBC Editor, she began her editorial career at Random House. She now lives in New York.
Extras
Sophie
An island in the Mediterranean Sea, 1940
For each of us, there is a moment: what we see at the last, before God closes our eyes forever; an entire existence distilled to one perfect memory. We anticipate its promise all our lives.
Some are entirely unprepared for the joy that dances through their souls and wince with regret at everything they missed during those final seconds. Others peacefully acknowledge something they long suspected but never truly realized, content to venture into the night enlightened. And then there are those, like me, who know exactly what they will see, who welcome the end for the privilege it will contain. Yes, for each of us, there is a moment. This is mine:
They are there in front of me on the beach. A tiny boy and a tiny girl bronzed from the sun, their hair white-blond. At the edge of the shore they stand, holding hands. They are singing a rhyme I have taught them in French: Odeur du temps brin de bruyére/Et souviens-toi que je t’attends. Fragrance of time sprig of heather/Remember I wait for you forever. They sing the song every time a wave approaches, attempting to jump over it before it breaks against the sand. My daughter invented the game, and my son, as ever, is content to play with her. Not simply content, ecstatic. They are childhood personified, childhood as it should be. They are the innocents of the world. They are laughing. They turn to each other and squeal with excitement every time they jump. Their curls fly up in the air as they ascend and fall over their eyes when they land. Odeur du temps brin de bruyére/Et souviens-toi que je t’attends. Fragrance of time sprig of heather/Remember I wait for you forever.
I call to them from the balcony of the Hôtel des Anges that it is time to go home for their nap. She looks at me over her shoulder, a familiar look of mischief in her eyes, and tightens her grip on my son’s hand. He would have come to me. She will not let him. And what is the harm? Why not let them play until they are so exhausted they can barely stay awake? They are only children. This is, after all, their time. Up and down they go, completely oblivious to me or any of the other assembled guests on the veranda, entranced by their game.
Sebastian is six, older by two years, but still he waits for Adora to jump before he follows. I can see his little legs shaking while he waits for her cue, afraid that he might ruin the game by leaping too soon, remaining throughout a beat behind her. His face floods with relief as he lands, but he does not look to me for praise or encouragement to try again, only to her. The sun moves down in the west of the sky as the game continues. It will stop only when she decrees it so.
I sit there, my hand resting on my parasol, basking in the glow conferred by my children, so exquisite they eclipse all others. I feel the residual heat of the day slip away like a silk cover being pulled carefully and slowly from my body, the breeze kissing my cheeks as dusk approaches. I care little for the murmurs emanating from the more staid American tourists who have stopped on our island as part of their Grand Tour. It’s not quite proper, don’t you think? Really, their nanny should bring them in. Most of the visitors seated around me are as transfixed by my children as I am. Yet as much as I want to linger on, I reluctantly check my complacency when I realize that it is growing late and their father and I are dining with friends this evening. I call to them again to come in, knowing I should insist, but something stops me. Something in my daughter’s eyes, as she turns toward me, framed by the dusk beyond, stops me.
It is thirty-five years since I watched them play on our island in the Mediterranean Sea. Yet it doesn’t seem possible that I am no longer that enviable woman sitting on the balcony of the most exclusive hotel in Europe in 1905, unquestioning of who I was, my morality, my judgment. Life then had done nothing so cruel that I could not recover. I considered everything I had ever been given to be a right and not a privilege. Not for me to toss in my bed at night asking myself, What have I done? That would come later.
The memory of that afternoon is my sanctuary now. It is all I have left. I watch my children play in front of me as if the illusion were real, as if I could reach out and touch them, as if I could change everything; as if I am still their mother.
For the rest of my son’s brief life, my daughter’s lead was the only one he would follow. Hers was the understanding heart he sought, her soul a soothing refuge for his pain. If he wandered, he returned to her. When he was lost, she found him. Since time immemorial there was no precedent for the love they owned. Few could possibly mine the unspoken depths of their affection or the secrets they shared. They were born for one another.
Neither knew how to live without the other. Neither did.
© 2010 Samantha Bruce-Benjamin
An island in the Mediterranean Sea, 1940
For each of us, there is a moment: what we see at the last, before God closes our eyes forever; an entire existence distilled to one perfect memory. We anticipate its promise all our lives.
Some are entirely unprepared for the joy that dances through their souls and wince with regret at everything they missed during those final seconds. Others peacefully acknowledge something they long suspected but never truly realized, content to venture into the night enlightened. And then there are those, like me, who know exactly what they will see, who welcome the end for the privilege it will contain. Yes, for each of us, there is a moment. This is mine:
They are there in front of me on the beach. A tiny boy and a tiny girl bronzed from the sun, their hair white-blond. At the edge of the shore they stand, holding hands. They are singing a rhyme I have taught them in French: Odeur du temps brin de bruyére/Et souviens-toi que je t’attends. Fragrance of time sprig of heather/Remember I wait for you forever. They sing the song every time a wave approaches, attempting to jump over it before it breaks against the sand. My daughter invented the game, and my son, as ever, is content to play with her. Not simply content, ecstatic. They are childhood personified, childhood as it should be. They are the innocents of the world. They are laughing. They turn to each other and squeal with excitement every time they jump. Their curls fly up in the air as they ascend and fall over their eyes when they land. Odeur du temps brin de bruyére/Et souviens-toi que je t’attends. Fragrance of time sprig of heather/Remember I wait for you forever.
I call to them from the balcony of the Hôtel des Anges that it is time to go home for their nap. She looks at me over her shoulder, a familiar look of mischief in her eyes, and tightens her grip on my son’s hand. He would have come to me. She will not let him. And what is the harm? Why not let them play until they are so exhausted they can barely stay awake? They are only children. This is, after all, their time. Up and down they go, completely oblivious to me or any of the other assembled guests on the veranda, entranced by their game.
Sebastian is six, older by two years, but still he waits for Adora to jump before he follows. I can see his little legs shaking while he waits for her cue, afraid that he might ruin the game by leaping too soon, remaining throughout a beat behind her. His face floods with relief as he lands, but he does not look to me for praise or encouragement to try again, only to her. The sun moves down in the west of the sky as the game continues. It will stop only when she decrees it so.
I sit there, my hand resting on my parasol, basking in the glow conferred by my children, so exquisite they eclipse all others. I feel the residual heat of the day slip away like a silk cover being pulled carefully and slowly from my body, the breeze kissing my cheeks as dusk approaches. I care little for the murmurs emanating from the more staid American tourists who have stopped on our island as part of their Grand Tour. It’s not quite proper, don’t you think? Really, their nanny should bring them in. Most of the visitors seated around me are as transfixed by my children as I am. Yet as much as I want to linger on, I reluctantly check my complacency when I realize that it is growing late and their father and I are dining with friends this evening. I call to them again to come in, knowing I should insist, but something stops me. Something in my daughter’s eyes, as she turns toward me, framed by the dusk beyond, stops me.
It is thirty-five years since I watched them play on our island in the Mediterranean Sea. Yet it doesn’t seem possible that I am no longer that enviable woman sitting on the balcony of the most exclusive hotel in Europe in 1905, unquestioning of who I was, my morality, my judgment. Life then had done nothing so cruel that I could not recover. I considered everything I had ever been given to be a right and not a privilege. Not for me to toss in my bed at night asking myself, What have I done? That would come later.
The memory of that afternoon is my sanctuary now. It is all I have left. I watch my children play in front of me as if the illusion were real, as if I could reach out and touch them, as if I could change everything; as if I am still their mother.
For the rest of my son’s brief life, my daughter’s lead was the only one he would follow. Hers was the understanding heart he sought, her soul a soothing refuge for his pain. If he wandered, he returned to her. When he was lost, she found him. Since time immemorial there was no precedent for the love they owned. Few could possibly mine the unspoken depths of their affection or the secrets they shared. They were born for one another.
Neither knew how to live without the other. Neither did.
© 2010 Samantha Bruce-Benjamin
Recenzii
"The Art of Devotion is a revival of elegance and grace, reminding us of an era when all literature was lyrical, with a fluidity that makes it appear song-like. Samantha Bruce-Benjamin's debut places her in a class with some of the best literary minds, including F. Scott Fitzgerald, whose Gatsby was a clear sign of inspiration."—The Examiner
"A haunting debut novel . . . Filled with secrets, love, betrayal, obsession, and deceit, The Art of Devotion is a beautifully rendered window into one family's dark and complex history on an island in the Mediterranean Sea from the turn of the century until the late 1930s." -- Hamptons.com
"A haunting debut novel . . . Filled with secrets, love, betrayal, obsession, and deceit, The Art of Devotion is a beautifully rendered window into one family's dark and complex history on an island in the Mediterranean Sea from the turn of the century until the late 1930s." -- Hamptons.com
Descriere
In this debut novel, a girl summers in the Mediterranean with her beautiful aunt, who hides secrets that could destroy everything she holds dear.