Ebook282 pages4 hours
Crossroads: A Novel
By Mary Morris
Rating: 0 out of 5 stars
()
About this ebook
Mary Morris's first book, the short story collection Vanishing Animals, was widely nailed by critics as one of the most distinguished recent debuts by a fiction writer. The American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters recognized her achievement with a citation and the coveted Rome Prize in Literature. Here, in her first novel, Mary Morris continues to fulfill her great promise, giving to her readers a compassionate story of good romance and bad timing, a novel of ordinary circumstance gone awry told with an extraordinary talent that is right on target.
Deborah Mills is an urban planner: an expert in traffic, a specialist in roads. At work she can plan for millions of people, but her own life seems to be a muddle. Her seven-year marriage falls apart when her husband tells her he is having an affair with one of her oldest friends. Stunned and angry, she haltingly begins her funny, bittersweet attempt to put her wrecked marriage behind her and start life anew. When her brother Zap, the family renegade, motorcycles back into her life, his reappearance causes Deborah to see how the residue of the past leaves its indelible mark on present events. Inevitably, she must set a new course: enter into new involvements and arrive at a new and encompassing autonomy. At a friend's country house she meets Sean, an assistant film director who looks strikingly like Robert De Niro. He advances, she retreats, and the questions begin. What direction should her future take? Is it too early or too late to begin all over again?
Crossroads is a novel about how one woman goes from being tossed about by fate to taking command of her own life. Joyce Carol Oates has praised Mary Morris's fiction as "beautifully crafted." Rosellen Brown has found her work "full of unexpected invention and sudden, almost offhand plunges toward a mysterious center." With Crossroads, Mary Morris gives her admirers a new chance to celebrate.
Deborah Mills is an urban planner: an expert in traffic, a specialist in roads. At work she can plan for millions of people, but her own life seems to be a muddle. Her seven-year marriage falls apart when her husband tells her he is having an affair with one of her oldest friends. Stunned and angry, she haltingly begins her funny, bittersweet attempt to put her wrecked marriage behind her and start life anew. When her brother Zap, the family renegade, motorcycles back into her life, his reappearance causes Deborah to see how the residue of the past leaves its indelible mark on present events. Inevitably, she must set a new course: enter into new involvements and arrive at a new and encompassing autonomy. At a friend's country house she meets Sean, an assistant film director who looks strikingly like Robert De Niro. He advances, she retreats, and the questions begin. What direction should her future take? Is it too early or too late to begin all over again?
Crossroads is a novel about how one woman goes from being tossed about by fate to taking command of her own life. Joyce Carol Oates has praised Mary Morris's fiction as "beautifully crafted." Rosellen Brown has found her work "full of unexpected invention and sudden, almost offhand plunges toward a mysterious center." With Crossroads, Mary Morris gives her admirers a new chance to celebrate.
Author
Mary Morris
Mary Morris is a professor at Sarah Lawrence College. She is the author of novels, travel writing, and short stories, and has been the recipient of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters' coveted Rome prize, a CAPS award, a Guggenheim fellowship, and a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Read more from Mary Morris
The Bus of Dreams Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Revenge: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Acts of God: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5
Related to Crossroads
Related ebooks
Murder in the Shores: Six Hands Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDr. Cappeletti's Chorus Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFalling In Love When You Thought You Were Through: A Love Story Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Nine Toes in the Grave Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLay On, Mac Duff! Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Detective Misty Rivers in "Long Overdue" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDelta Red Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKissing Lucy Thai Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHow to Love an American Man: A True Story Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Memoir of an Independent Woman: An Unconventional Life Well Lived Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSummary of Jami Attenberg's I Came All This Way to Meet You Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAstoria Story Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWhere Did You Sleep Last Night?: A Personal History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5From Staircase to Stage: The Story of Raekwon and the Wu-Tang Clan Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5In the Wind Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBatista Unleashed Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Dark Eclipse: Reflections on Suicide and Absence Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLoyal Snakes Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSeventh Crossing Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOnce Upon a Miracle Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMy Life as a Tortured Wife Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Rest of Us: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Summary of Ariel Levy's The Rules Do Not Apply Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBadge and Blade Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEnormous Changes at the Last Minute: Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tale of Tala Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Splinters of You: Retired Sinners Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Valhalla Plot: Operation Presidential Thunder Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAn International Exchange Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Rocky Scheme: Faces of International Intrigue Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Classics For You
Warrior of the Light: A Manual Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Learn French! Apprends l'Anglais! THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY: In French and English Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hell House: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Animal Farm: A Fairy Story Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Rebecca Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Flowers for Algernon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Bell Jar: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fellowship Of The Ring: Being the First Part of The Lord of the Rings Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Things They Carried Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5East of Eden Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Old Man and the Sea: The Hemingway Library Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Good Man Is Hard To Find And Other Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Silmarillion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Heroes: The Greek Myths Reimagined Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Persuasion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Count of Monte-Cristo English and French Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Confederacy of Dunces Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Farewell to Arms Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Scarlet Letter Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Sun Also Rises: The Hemingway Library Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Two Towers: Being the Second Part of The Lord of the Rings Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ulysses: With linked Table of Contents Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5For Whom the Bell Tolls: The Hemingway Library Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Poisonwood Bible: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5As I Lay Dying Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tinkers: 10th Anniversary Edition Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Canterbury Tales Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Republic by Plato Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Crossroads
Rating: 0 out of 5 stars
0 ratings
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Crossroads - Mary Morris
}e book_preview_excerpt.html |[FV`1j)((Y=|iY_d"2* £^%6f)9G YdY "
kJ86}KOCǟ<~"TiH}o]ڹnCu:)0q~}g6OSjqjSȏx0Ǐ'ql/)>i:#$͟EfvĊC3q:!u4of<6']L*l<#Ƒ_LiZ5JzcB۔7zVʽ4cJu߷0ҌygSl?~u.`=~{帩swW_|,|{쎻tüi-vO?`鯚@ Z iF*ꀅ/χ4C X&ww[}h6/ܾ7ߎ~~͗_oxS}q_