Almost Heaven

by Marianne Wiggins

Almost Heaven is an intellectually dazzling, emotionally incandescent story of memory and the redemptive power of love.
        
Holden Garfield is a foreign correspondent, burnt out before he's thirty, who comes back to Virginia to try to forget his experiences of war abroad and to find new hope in his life. What he finds, instead, is a woman who is desperate for his help.
        
Through a chance phone call, Holden learns that his mentor's sister, Melanie, is hospitalized in Richmond with hysterical amnesia after her husband and sons were killed in a freak act of nature. Holden sets out to help her reconstruct her past, and almost at once the two embark on a passionate love affair--one fighting to remember, the other yearning to forget.
        
Memory. Passion. Loss. The ravages of extreme forces of nature . . . These are the themes Marianne Wiggins weaves through Almost Heaven with the same effects she so brilliantly deployed in her previous classic, John Dollar . In Almost Heaven she brings her dramatic force home, writing not only a whirlwind love story but a personal love letter to the American South.

Genres: Fiction, Romance

213 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Marianne Wiggins is the author of seven books of fiction including John Dollar and Evidence of Things Unseen. She has won an NEA grant, the Whiting Writers' Award, and the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize, and she was a National Book Award- and Pulitzer Prize-finalist in fiction for Evidence of Things Unseen.

Reviews

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This might be the first time this has happened to me: I loved this book--it's smart and beautiful and engaging, and I can't think of one person to recommend it to.

[Kate Gould · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've recently discovered Marianne Wiggins and am in awe of her talent. You have to read Almost Heaven. Never mind the other books on your pile. It’s the best book by a female author I’ve read in years. Perhaps ever, in fact. I don’t know how she knows the things she does. Must have spent an awful lot of time listening or maybe she was just born like that. I has the most brilliant ending, reminiscent of The Fisher King “Can I miss her now?” I finished it last night and just thought fucking hell she’s just got it. That's about as eloquent as I was capable of being, so struck was I by the words. Gives me shivers just thinking about it. It’s the most incredible depiction of breakdown and the rebuilding of a person and creation of a relationship. I haven't read all her work yet - though I intend to - but The Shadow Catcher and Herself In Love are also remarkable pieces of writing. Every word she's written ought to be required reading for any creative writing course.

[Joyce · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my fav's.

[Leslie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think now, after finishing this intense and perfect book, I only have one more of this amazing author’s books to read.

The writing is …acrobatic and precise and witty and wise.

[Angela · Rating 2 out of 5]

Holden is a burned-out journalist. He spent time in Bosnia, saw things he couldn't unsee, and has come home to America—likely for good. While he's camped out in a super-plush hotel in D.C., he learns that the sister of his lifelong mentor is in a psychiatric hospital. She has trauma-induced amnesia. And because Holden has literally nothing else to do with his life, he visits her. Somehow, with never meeting each other face-to-face, and with her inability to remember anything... she knows him.

I've read Wiggins before, and I picked this up because I love the way she works with language. But this one... it's a bit too much. There are beautiful, expressive passages scattered throughout that have little to do with the plot. There's this underlying theme of "weather" and "nature" that is meant to be clever—and it is, at times—but feels more like a writing exercise than something relating to the plot.

There's this quasi-love story going on between Holden and the sister, which just got more annoying as time went on. They both have issues, sure, and they depend on each other for... something... but I really don't like the way it developed. And I knew how it would end. I get really bored when I know halfway through how it's going to end.

If you plan to read Wiggins, I suggest you start with something else. She is a master wordsmith, but it may be better if you skip this one all together.

[Danielle · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disappointing! I absolutely loved "Evidence of Things Unseen" and was really looking forward to devouring another novel by Marianne Wiggins. This one didn't do it for me. I didn't connect with the main character or his love interest at all. I also felt that the relationship was unlikely. A 20-something man falls in love with a 40-something amnesia victim in 4 days while driving her from one psychiatric ward to another. Skip it and read Evidence!

[elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

my review may be clouded by my great relief of having finished a book for the first time in over a year, but this book came to me at a good time as i was already thinking much about memory-loss and severe weather.

[Margie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantastic read. Intimacy, twist and turns in plot, poetic, love, it has it all. This is one of the several books by Marianne Wiggins I have read. Will read others by her. Her prose is moving and intimate. Story lines are out of the ordinary and reach your head and heart.

[Elizabeth Sulzby · Rating 5 out of 5]

Breathtaking.

[Kathleen Suess · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wiggins is a 5 star read every time, for me. I got lucky and found 'Almost Heaven', published in 1998, in the far corner of a bookshop in Chatham, MA, Yellow Umbrella Books. Though the book is shorter than her more recent works, her voice is immediately recognizable, and her prose, absolutely riveting.

There is much to learn in Wiggins' novels, things and facts and glimpses and knowledge, alongside the storyline. I am blown away by the research within, the underlying theme in all her books, a connection so strong, to nature, the elements, their forces upon us; how little we all may know, and need to know. She's a novelist, a poet, a meteorologist, a....damn fine writer.
I look forward to reading every one of her books.

[Vernie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really liked the plot... a burn out journalist and a woman dealing with her own traumas or demons. I feel like I was in a roller coaster ride and only to find out at the end the momentum changed. Like...what? What was the ending?. The Road trip coupled with the intense love making is sure to thrill any reader. But at times....the narrative is seem out of place...like I don't know who is talking or if this is only the author's writing style. There are some characters which is no longer relevant to the story still its a love story that really leaves you hanging only the cliffhanger doesn't work well enough for me.

[Janell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wiggins is now on my favorites shelf.

[Lori · Rating 1 out of 5]

What the…? Not a fan of this book at all. Only finished it because it was so short. I didn’t like her writing style, had a hard time figuring out who was talking. And the ending, really?!

[Ron Schneider · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great novel from one of my favorite authors. A short novel, but one that displays her beautiful prose.

[Kayne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stunning! I couldn’t put it down!

[Justiine · Rating 4 out of 5]

The words were wording

[Stacia · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a book I picked up based on the cover catching my eye at a used bookstore. The spine is rainbow-striped so it really stands out. The teaser says it's about a reporter who comes home burnt out from reporting about the war to find his best friend's sister is suffering from "hysterical amnesia" after witnessing the death of her husband and four children. It sounded interesting so I picked it up.

And it WAS interesting, but it fell short of its potential. The pieces never came together coherently for me. There were secondary bits that seemed to never pay off so probably could've been cut altogether. I don't need things explained in great detail but I found myself completely confused by some of those secondary bits. For example, there's a totally minor plot about two people named Sydney getting married, one of whom has gotten breast implants, and until the last 20 pages I was convinced it was two women. Which is fine, but it wasn't clear.

I understand that the main character, Holden, is supposed to be motivated by his burnout and what he's gone through covering the war, but his actions in the last third of the book in regards to Melanie (the amnesiac sister) seem really implausible and bizarre. To me, that means either the author didn't do a good enough job convincing me or I wasn't the right audience for this book.

[Pamela · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a weird book … it is the second novel by Marianne Wiggins that I have read (the first being “The Shadow Catcher” which I definitely liked better). I think her writing is brilliant, her dialogue funny and clever, her situational symbolism fascinating, but her story is hard to follow and confusing. This is the story of Holden Garfield, a war correspondent who has returned to the U.S. to take a break from the trauma of what he has seen in Bosnia. He becomes involved with a friend’s sister who has suffered severe amnesia when she witnessed her husband and four sons die in a freak tornado. He tries to help her, she comes on to him sexually, they begin a journey across the country, and there is a lot of introspection and analysis of emotions.

There are a variety of characters that are introduced, but dropped too quickly. They sound fascinating, but I’m not sure why they’re even mentioned. Plus, the story doesn’t really have an ending; there are implications, but it leaves you hanging, and I didn’t like that.

While I enjoy reading her prose style, Wiggins is a little too off-beat for me.

[Lauren · Rating 3 out of 5]

Re-read. Marianne Wiggins is one of my favorite writers in terms of her actual writing-the prose is lyrical but not gimmicky and she occasionally puts down a revelation that makes you wonder a) why you didn't think of that and b) that you never could have phrased it in just the right way as she has done. That said, this isn't my favorite of hers-on re-read I really found myself disliking Holden, the protagonist (and I promise it's not just because he shares a name with my least favorite protagonist of all time) (now I'm wondering if the naming was intentional? More thoughts for another day, I suppose) and while the story ended where I guess it should have too much about it made me feel unsatisfied. This book is alright but I'd recommend another one of Wiggins if you haven't read her before.

[Bachyboy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A young journalist, shell shocked from the dead of Bosnia, tries to help his friend's sister. She has lost all her family in tragic circumstances and now has hysterical amnesia. It is a whirlwind love story but what has stuck in my mind is the huge number of minor sentences in this book. There is also the occasional patch of overwriting such as "the towns grow smaller, like Petrie dishes preserving microcultures.... hmmmm.

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oh, the star rating gets to me with this book. Wiggins is an excellent writer, and weaves tales together like a champ, but this one didn't move me. I felt irritated and frustrated, so guess that is movement. If I re-read the story and ruminated over what I learned about their lives, I probably would have a different view. It was deep at parts and Lifetime meets The Bachelor at others. Almost Heaven was almost great. Probably just over my head...

[Jade17]

My notes currently unearthed said that I read this in Jan 2002. I certainly don't remember it.

[Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this book more than The Shadow Catcher but not as much as Evidence of Things Unseen. A fantastic and very quick read!

[Beth Shields-Szostak]

1st edition, signed by author with add'l page signed & inscribed by author loosely inserted

[Louise Bodack]

excellent novel. Very sad however. A young journalist burned out by visions of death he has seen in Bosnia, tries to help his friend's sister deal with an overwhelming tragedy in her life.

[Deltabird · Rating 4 out of 5]

I hated to see it end.