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Splendid Omens
It's 1993 and Alec Thompson is traveling to Maine, to witness at the marriage of his painter friend, Webb Hartley. When Alec arrives at the wedding scene, he is surprised that no one-including Pru Mackenzie, Webb's 30-year younger bride-to-be-is on hand to welcome him. He soon learns the reason; his best friend has suffered a fatal heart attack, and the wedding is off.
Webb's death sends Alec in search of Jenny Grant, Webb's first wife, to announce the news. The journey takes him from Webb's Maine farmhouse to a northern California horse ranch and leads him through both men's pasts, from college to the present. As he re-explores the events that had bound the three of them-both men had been rivals for Jenny's affection-Alec discovers, in the murky context of those days, that their lives were far more entangled than he had imagined. What Alec learns-and what Webb apparently wanted him to know-cuts to the very essence of the rest of Alec's life. Understanding what happened thirty years earlier is more important to him than ever.
Along the way, Alec's quest introduces him to a precocious twelve-year-old, an ultra-sophisticated divorceé, a Native American psychic. All are part of Webb's legacy for Alec to comb his memory, and the memories of everyone still living, in order to realize the truth.
Vivid, poetic, and written with the same care and craft as the author's elegant short stories, Splendid Omens is both understated and shocking-and a deeply beautiful book that examines how different versions of the truth are like holograms that can re-create a life.
Webb's death sends Alec in search of Jenny Grant, Webb's first wife, to announce the news. The journey takes him from Webb's Maine farmhouse to a northern California horse ranch and leads him through both men's pasts, from college to the present. As he re-explores the events that had bound the three of them-both men had been rivals for Jenny's affection-Alec discovers, in the murky context of those days, that their lives were far more entangled than he had imagined. What Alec learns-and what Webb apparently wanted him to know-cuts to the very essence of the rest of Alec's life. Understanding what happened thirty years earlier is more important to him than ever.
Along the way, Alec's quest introduces him to a precocious twelve-year-old, an ultra-sophisticated divorceé, a Native American psychic. All are part of Webb's legacy for Alec to comb his memory, and the memories of everyone still living, in order to realize the truth.
Vivid, poetic, and written with the same care and craft as the author's elegant short stories, Splendid Omens is both understated and shocking-and a deeply beautiful book that examines how different versions of the truth are like holograms that can re-create a life.
272 pages, Hardcover
First published February 1, 2004
About the author
Robley Wilson
26 books10 followersRobley Wilson (born 1930 in Brunswick, Maine) is an American poet, writer, and editor.
Wilson's first book of poems, 'Kingdoms of the Ordinary', was the 1986 Agnes Lynch Starrett prizewinner, published by the University of Pittsburgh Press in the fall of 1987; his second, 'A Pleasure Tree', also from Pittsburgh, won the Society of Midland Authors Poetry Prize for 1990; his most recent collection, 'Everything Paid For', was published by the University Press of Florida in 1999. A poetry chapbook, 'A Walk Through the Human Heart', appeared in 1996 from Helicon Nine editions.
Wilson taught creative writing at the University of Northern Iowa from 1963 to 1996, and from 1969 to 2000 was editor of the 'North American Review', a university-owned magazine which twice won the National Magazine Award for Fiction administered by the American Society of Magazine Editors.
He has been visiting writer at the University of Iowa Writers Workshop, Beloit College, Northwestern University, Pitzer College, and the University of Central Florida.
Wilson and his wife, fiction writer Susan Hubbard co-edited '100% Pure Florida Fiction', an anthology of Florida short stories written since 1985. The two divide their time between Orlando and Cape Canaveral, Florida and share their lives with five unruly cats: Isis, Olivia, Widget, Winston Churchill, and Max.
Wilson's first book of poems, 'Kingdoms of the Ordinary', was the 1986 Agnes Lynch Starrett prizewinner, published by the University of Pittsburgh Press in the fall of 1987; his second, 'A Pleasure Tree', also from Pittsburgh, won the Society of Midland Authors Poetry Prize for 1990; his most recent collection, 'Everything Paid For', was published by the University Press of Florida in 1999. A poetry chapbook, 'A Walk Through the Human Heart', appeared in 1996 from Helicon Nine editions.
Wilson taught creative writing at the University of Northern Iowa from 1963 to 1996, and from 1969 to 2000 was editor of the 'North American Review', a university-owned magazine which twice won the National Magazine Award for Fiction administered by the American Society of Magazine Editors.
He has been visiting writer at the University of Iowa Writers Workshop, Beloit College, Northwestern University, Pitzer College, and the University of Central Florida.
Wilson and his wife, fiction writer Susan Hubbard co-edited '100% Pure Florida Fiction', an anthology of Florida short stories written since 1985. The two divide their time between Orlando and Cape Canaveral, Florida and share their lives with five unruly cats: Isis, Olivia, Widget, Winston Churchill, and Max.
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March 23, 2017I couldn't finish this. The first 60 or so pages were interesting, but once he mentioned the Ouija Board and the 3-year-old, I started fading. His recounting of his personal history with the deceased put me to sleep. No thanks.
September 29, 2014
A bit draggy in the middle.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews