book cover of The Lovers
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The Lovers

(2010)
A novel by

 
 
From the acclaimed author of the 2007 New York Times Notable Book Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name comes a stunning novel about the love between husbands and wives, mothers and children.

Twenty-eight years ago, Peter and Yvonne honeymooned in the beautiful coastal village of Datça, Turkey. Now Yvonne is a widow, her twin children grown. Hoping to immerse herself in memories of a happier time - as well as sand and sea - Yvonne returns to Datça. But her plans for a restorative week in Turkey are quickly complicated. Instead of comforting her, her memories begin to trouble her. Her vacation rental's landlord and his bold, intriguing wife - who share a curious marital arrangement - become constant uninvited visitors, in and out of the house.

Overwhelmed by the past and unexpectedly dislocated by the environment, Yvonne clings to a newfound friendship with Ahmet, a local boy who makes his living as a shell collector. With Ahmet as her guide, Yvonne gains new insight into the lives of her own adult children, and she finally begins to enjoy the shimmering sea and relaxed pace of the Turkish coast. But a devastating accident upends her delicate peace and throws her life into chaos - and her sense of self into turmoil.

With the crystalline voice and psychological nuance for which her work has been so celebrated, Vendela Vida has crafted another unforgettable heroine in a stunningly beautiful and mysterious landscape.

Genre: Literary Fiction

Praise for this book

"A stingingly acute account of grief, a moving meditation on love... and a page-turning adventure." - Zoë Heller

"A wise and generous book." - Aleksandar Hemon

"The Lovers pulls you out to sea with a masterful hypnosis. I was so enthralled by the grief, the sticky and sandy details, and especially the perfect articulation of feminine self-awareness that I didn't realize how deep in I was. I read the last page with a tearful gasp." - Miranda July

"Vendela Vida has written a riveting and suspenseful novel about an American woman's voyage to self-discovery as she travels alone in Turkey. Though the aura of dread mounts, as in one of Paul Bowles' eerie and unnerving works of fiction, there are surprising revelations here, and an utterly unpredictable ending." - Joyce Carol Oates

"The lovers is a spare and haunting meditation on how travel can bring us full circle back to the place from which we should have started. I read it over two days and dreamed about it the second night." - Francine Prose


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