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    Night Navigation: A Novel
    Night Navigation: A Novel
    Night Navigation: A Novel
    Ebook374 pages7 hours

    Night Navigation: A Novel

    By Ginnah Howard

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    A mother and her adult, drug-addicted son struggle for redemption and recovery in this “dark debut” novel that “has the power to lift and inspire” (Publishers Weekly).

    Night Navigation opens on a freezing-rain night in upstate New York: the kindling gone, the fire in the woodstove out. Retired high-school art teacher Del Merrick’s thirty-seven-year-old manic-depressive son, Mark, needs a ride, but she’s afraid to make the long drive north to the only detox that has a bed.
     
    Through each of the four seasons, Night Navigation takes readers into the deranged, darkly humorous world of the addict—from break-your-arm dealers, to boot-camp rehabs, to Rumi-quoting NA sponsors. Mark can’t find a way to live in this world; Del can’t stop trying to rescue him. And yet, during this long year’s night, through relapse and despair, Mark and Del see flare-ups of hope as they fitfully, painfully try to steer toward the light.
     
    Told in the alternating voices of an addict and his mother, this “harrowing . . . cathartic” novel adds new depths to our understanding and literature of parents and their troubled children (Kirkus Reviews).
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateApr 14, 2010
    ISBN9780547393902
    Night Navigation: A Novel
    Author

    Ginnah Howard

    GINNAH HOWARD taught high school English for twenty-seven years and began writing when she was in her mid-forties. Her work has appeared in Water-Stone Review, Permafrost, and A Room of One’s Own, and has twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. For more information, visit www.ginnahhoward.com.

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    • 4/5
      This is a story of the pain and despair of drug addiction. This is the story of a mother's worst nightmare: caught between the love for your child and the knowledge that you cannot fix them.Meet Del, a middle-aged widow, and her grown son Mark. Mark is an addict. Del wants nothing more than to save her son. The odds are against them both. Suicide, mental illness and family dysfunction are all an important part of this story that takes you into the depths of a family's anguish.There can be no doubt that author Ginnah Howard has personally experienced the journey described in this novel. No one could possibly write this painful and poignant tale without living it first. Her sparse, yet somehow still lyrical style draw you into her world, into her characters, until you find yourself a de facto member of this dysfunctional and desperate family.There is a price to being drawn into a tale such as this. It leaves the reader with the emptiness, no --- make that the hollowness, that comes from living with continually dashed hope. Eventually, only numbness remains.Yet if you've ever wondered what it's like to be a parent of an addict, this novel is the closest you'll ever want to come to finding out. Despair? It abounds in this novel, but so does understanding and the depths of a mother's love.Do I recommend the novel? That depends. If you have the fortitude to delve into dark subject matter out of a genuine desire to understand, then yes. Otherwise, you'd best skip it.

    Book preview

    Night Navigation - Ginnah Howard

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