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The Distance Between Us (Kensington) |
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Author:
Bart Yates
By Kensington
Average Customer Rating:  
List Price: $24.00
Our Price: $11.15
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Product Description
Award-winning author Bart Yates has established himself as a formidable writer gifted with rare insight, depth, and talent. Now, in an unforgettable new novel, he presents a blistering portrait of a troubled family, of bonds that can be battered but never broken, and of the friendships that can make us whole again.Hester Parker resides in an elegant Victorian house in the town of Bolton, Illinois. She spends her evenings listening to the lush tones of Mahler and Chopin, drinking sub-par Merlot, and reflecting on a life that has suddenly fallen apart. At seventy-one, Hester is as brilliant and sharp-tongued as ever, capable of inspiring her music students to soaring heights or reducing them to tears with a single comment. But her wit can't hide the bitterness that comes with loss -- the loss of her renowned violinist husband, Arthur Donovan, who left her for another woman, and the loss of her career as a concert pianist after injuring her wrist. In this home that holds so many memories, Hester and Arthur raised three volatile children -- Paul, a talented and neurotic cellist, Caitlin, an accomplished literary professor who inspires both dread and worship among her students, and Jeremy, sweet, spirited, and as musically gifted as his parents. Though Caitlin and Paul still live in Bolton, both have taken Arthur's side in the divorce and rarely see their mother. When Hester decides to rent out the attic apartment to Alex, a young college student, she has no idea of the impact he will have on her life and her family. Good-natured and awkward, with secrets of his own, Alex becomes an unlikely confidant and a means of reconnecting with the world outside Hester's window. But his presence also exposes old memories and grief that Hester has tried to bury. Over the course of one remarkable month, Hester will confront angry accusations, long-hidden jealousies, and the inescapable truth that tore her family apart and might, against all odds, help reconcile them again. And her brief friendship with Alex will leave each with a surprising legacy -- acceptance of the past, a seed of comfort in the present, and hope for the future, wherever it may lead. Tender and funny, heartbreaking and wise, The Distance Between Us is a masterful evocation of family and friendship, of the pain that goes hand-in-hand with love, and of the grace and wisdom that remain when heartbreak finally subsides.
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Don't want it to end!, 2008-12-21
I have maybe 25 pages left and I just don't want this book to end! I have read, and fallen in love with, his other two novels, and this one just the same.
The book is told from the first person point of view of a 70+ year old Hester. How would a 26 year old (me) be able to connect with her? Brilliant storytelling and witty insights and dialogue that make this a real page-turner.
I first read Bart Yates' other books because they were gay fiction and I had no idea what to expect with this book. But I think I like this one even more than his first two. Maybe I just love dysfunctional family type books, because that is definitely what this family is. Poor Hester. She messes up so much, despite trying to be good.
I dread finishing this book. It will be like saying goodbye to these characters that I have grown to love over the past few weeks (yes, despite being a page-turner, I have been forcing myself to slowly turn those pages).
I can only say that I can't want to see what this guy comes up with next!
 "A woman haunted by the past and on the verge of despair about the future" , 2008-10-23
Set in the river town of Bolton, Illinois, the home of The Carson Conservatory of Music, Hester Parker lives in her church-like ramshackle house with its high ceilings and large oval windows. She spends her days guzzling wine and ruminating over the disintegration of her marriage to Arthur and the sudden animosity of her children Paul and Caitlin. Her grand piano "a glorious dinosaur" is her only source of pleasure and the only remnant of her life once lived as a famous concert pianist. When Alex, a young student who is studying at Pritchard comes to visit, he's immediately in thrall to Hester and trusting her instincts, she allows him to move into the upstairs loft, once the home of Hester's lost son Jeremy. But it is Alex's presence in Hester's house that suddenly becomes the catalyst for all of the pent-up animosities between Hester and with Arthur. Overwhelmed by her circumstances and all hope and promise shattered with the pain in her left hand overwhelming, Hester is appalled when her still "terribly handsome husband" turns up and accusing her of destroying his priceless antique chair and then threatens to take the house from her. Arthur also has not taken kindly to Hester taking on another tenant without his consent. But as the ghost of Jeremy, constantly reappears phoenix-like in Hester's life, the older woman is surprisingly drawn to Alex, finding a measure of succor in his positive outlook.
Thus the daily dramas unfold, playing out within Hester's talented family, the far too sensitive Alex stepping into a hornet's nest of pent-up fury and familial ill-will, while also battling his attraction to his school-mate Eric. With her career behind her, Hester is left to spend her days trying to dodge the violence from Paul and his anger at her. Paul is a man who now has few friends, his brother Jeremy was one of the only people in the world he actually loved and he blames his mother for everything that happened and thinks his mother could have changed the outcome and prevented Jeremy from doing what he did. Hester remains at the core of Bart Yates intuitive character study, a victim of a life she considers is a disaster and her prospects for tomorrow just as grim: "I'm still at war with my family, I'm still tired old and angry." Although relief may once have come through a crippled, tenuous sort of love between Hester and her children, but it is the passion she shares with Arthur for music that provides the strongest bond, the delicate notes from the great sonatas and symphonies providing comfort and a delicate counterbalance to all of Hester's hatred and vitriol at both herself and her family.
In the end nothing in Hester's life has ever mattered to her more than her musical ability, not her parents, not her children not even Arthur. While Alex provides an outlet for her pain, music remains her god. Although some of the clashes between the characters are a bit contrived, particularly that of Hester and her dealing with Arthur's mistress Martha, a "malicious blue jay" who took her husband, her life and her happiness, mostly the author portrays a vulnerable Hester who remains unable to cope with the unhappiness of her family. Yates focuses on the good and bad moments in one's life where we all have to do what we can to get by and make sense of the world and those with an artistic calling do this because they know no other way to live. Arthur, Caitlin and Paul are just as lost as Hester. Together at last they come together in a stunned and nightmarish silence to face the reality of what happened to Jeremy, but the sad reality is that none of them seem to able to bridge the distance between them, the delicate notes of music proving to be the only healing force in this sensitive and often melancholy drama. Mike Leonard 2008.
Comes together well in the second half, 2008-10-21
If you're a fan of Yates then you'll know that he favors sarcastic/witty dialogue and the main character is always the wittiest of them all. The trend continues here; however, he takes a detour and decides to go behind the eyes of an elderly woman rather than the usual gay male protagonist.
The switch mostly works and I found myself relating to Hester as I have many of the elderly people I've met who seem to have lost their social filter. The problem is that throughout most of the first half, I felt the dialogue was forced and written to be witty rather than natural. On top of that, Yates hints early that something happened to Hester's youngest son but takes so long to reveal the incident that I became frustrated. The incident is so integral to the plot that I don't feel like the story truly begins until we start to learn about it.
Luckily, both of these issues are remedied in the second half and things start coming together. Soon characters start exploring their emotions and show what all the sarcasm was meant to hide. This is where Yates' story telling and dialogue shine. The characters become extremely relatable and you can emphasize with their actions. Everything doesn't wrap up perfectly in the end, but that's often true in real life.
Bart Yates' appel extends outside the relm of gay fiction and I'd recommend this to anyone looking for something with more depth than a beach read, but still with a witty and digestible flow.
Humerous Touching Novel, 2008-10-12
This book got my attention from the very start. Hester, the main character is humerous and sarcastic yet vulnerable and likable. Toward the middle of the novel I got a bit bored and didn't care about some of the outlying characters even though they had a purpose. I loved the interaction between Hester and her new roomate Alex.
The last 50 pages were also excellent - everything comes full circle and the tear and the laughs are numeorus through these pages.
Bart is an excellent writer. I enjoyed his first 2 novels more - but independent those books - this books stands on it's own as something special and very readable.
Be fair, 2008-10-11
OK, I get all the haters who are pissed that Bart didn't "deliver" another over-the-top gay book. You're right. No arguments. What we get instead is an author stretching his wings. Sure, the content is different... sure it's not stereotypical or predictable... but, for crissakes, this is Yates we're talking about. He's never given his readers an easy book, mostly 'cuz he knows you're all smarter than that. Yeah, TDBWU is a different direction, a different story, but ultimately, it's all Yates. And Lord, the man can still rock a story.
This is a guy stretching his wings, don't clip them. Read this book. The writing is top notch, the characters--despite their awful and too human tendencies--are real. Yates doesn't sugarcoat, but we're a a better reading public for it.
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN: 9780758226969
ISBN: 0758226969
Label: Kensington
Manufacturer: Kensington
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 352
Publication Date: 2008-09-01
Publisher: Kensington
Studio: Kensington |
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