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Right of Thirst: A Novel (P.S.) |  | Author: Frank Huyler
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Category: Book
List Price: $14.99
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as of 11/22/2009 04:09 MST details
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Seller: centralkybooksupply
Rating:  13 reviews
Sales Rank: 30575
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1
Pages: 384
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5.2 x 1.1
ISBN: 0061687545
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN: 9780061687549
ASIN: 0061687545
Publication Date: May 1, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Shattered by his wife's death, and by his own role in it, successful cardiologist Charles Anderson volunteers to assist with earthquake relief in an impoverished Islamic country in a constant state of conflict with its neighbor. But when the refugees he's come to help do not appear and artillery begins to fall in the distance along the border, the story takes an unexpected turn. This haunting, resonant tour de force about one man's desire to live a moral life offers a moving exploration of the tensions between poverty and wealth, the ethics of intervention, the deep cultural differences that divide the world, and the essential human similarities that unite it.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 13
Better prose than many Pulizer winners August 12, 2009
Robert Carlson (Sitka, AK USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I saw the New Yorker review, tried the preview on my Kindle, and downloaded the full version.
The prose flowed better than the last 2 Pulitzer non-fiction winners that I read this spring and the story captivating to a middle aged Alaska MD.
This novel is a gem.
From Colorado Springs Gazette Book Columnist August 6, 2009
J. Miller
I read several novels per week and am not easy to please...but I love this book! Huyler's characters feel very authentic, very real. The dialogue is natural, and the relationships never feel forced. Huyler takes readers to a new place, giving us an opportunity to explore how we would handle the circumstances his characters find themselves in.
For my complete Gazette review, please visit the Colorado Springs Gazette Web site, click Life and then Books.
Happy Reading,
Anita Miller
The search for a meaningful life July 31, 2009
Lisa (Elverson, PA United States)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is a beautifully written novel about a middle aged man (Charles), discombobulated after the death of his wife, who wants to do something meaningful in his life, so he sets off to do earthquake relief in an unnamed country (Afghanistan?).
"... my eagerness made me realize that I truly had come for a reason, that the simple freedom of experience was not what I sought. I needed something else, something clear and redeeming and larger than myself, whatever it might be..."
Written in the first person, it's a very personal, interior story, but Charles and the other characters are all beautifully realized. Charles is so thoughtful, he so much wants to do good, but of course things don't work out quite as planned. He finds that the country is caught up in a civil war of sorts and that feeding starving people affected by the quake is not a priority.
"...all the questions of hierarchy and honor, the eagerness to spend precisely what they could least afford on conflict and war, to remake the struggle as one between men when it should have been one between hunger and food, between legs and stones -- suddenly it infuriated me." And later, as he is getting ready to leave and return home, his mission unfulfilled:
"I saw it clearly. I was guilty of the commonest of American failings, a modestly successful man, and no more, and there was so much I could not grasp, and did not understand, and I was old enough to know that I never would. If that was the best I could manage, I thought, it wasn't good enough, because surely there was more.
Surely mine was not the only story to be told."
There is so much more to this novel than I could possibly recount here, including his relationships with other people, past and present. It resonated strongly with me through universal themes ... the desire for a meaningful life, guilt about not giving enough or doing enough for your loved ones, confusion about how to find the right balance, recognition of the simple things that give one's life meaning. Huyler's writing is spare but evocative and compelling. It's one of the best books I've ever read.
A real Page Turner! July 23, 2009
N. Rossley
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
A fascinating story of one man's life changing event to overcome the death of his wife by volunteering his medical skills at a refugee camp high in the mountians of a middle east country. When the refugee's don't show up, the story takes a drastic turn. Frank Huyler's characters are so real and the story so compelling, they jump off the pagers, I couldn't put this book down!......run, don't walk to your nearest bookstore to buy this one.
Publishers Weekly review is laughable in one respect July 2, 2009
James S. Littlehale (Richmond, CA)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
The following two phrases from the "Editorial Reviews" section of this excellent novel's Amazon page both cracked me up and angered me:
1) clear-eyed if occasionally overwrought exploration of grief and redemption
2) perhaps too sincere and sentimental exploration of what limited power any given individual has to change the world.
The second phrase, especially, amused me because I know the author. Too sentimental? In current parlance, that made me LOL.
Why did the reviewer's tossed off lines anger me? I think it is because I can think of few things besides grief, redemption, and the limited power of a given individual has to change the world that are more deserving of detailed, sincere treatment. And Frank Huyler approached those subjects with great art - beautiful art at that - _and_ novelistic craftsmanship.
I found that I didn't just turn the pages of this novel because I wanted to be able to tell a friend that I had indeed read the work he had put such care into. I kept on turning the pages of "Right of Thirst" because the characters to me were real and compelling; the prose beautiful; the story at once provocative and careful _not_ to be overwrought; and the novel's pacing - no exaggeration - to be perfect to this reader (who usually is too tired and worn out in the evenings to plunge into anything longer than 600 words).
If the phrase "examined life" (or any phrase with the same meaning) has ever held meaning to you, then you must read this novel. It won't leave you with neatly packaged answers. But it will illuminate your own search for answers.
Signed, a friend of the author's who, _unlike_ the author, _is_ often guilty of being "too sincere and sentimental".
Showing reviews 1-5 of 13
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