Showing results for "The Rural" in Literary Fiction

A House for Mr. Biswas, by Nobel and Booker Prize-winning author V. S. Naipaul, is a powerful novel about one man's struggle for identity and belonging. Born into poverty, then trapped in the shackles of charity and gratitude, Mr. Biswas longs for a house he can call his own. He loathes his wife and her wealthy family, upon whom he is dependent. Finding himself a mere accessory on their estate, his constant rebellion is motivated by the one thing that can symbolize his independence.

Betty Sweet never expected to be a widow at 40. With so much life still in front of her, she tries to figure out what's next. She couldn't have imagined what God had in mind. When her estranged sister is committed to a sanitarium, Betty finds herself taking on the care of a 5-year-old nephew she never knew she had. In 1960s LaFontaine, Michigan, they make an odd pair. Betty with her pink button nose and bouffant hair. Hugo with his light brown skin and large brown eyes. But more powerful than what makes them different is what they share: the heartache of an empty space in their lives.

Long before Hank Crawford arrived in the waters of Ketchikan, his partners and compatriots were already in love with its shores. Following the final, crushing moments of World War II, Japanese officer Kiyoshi Tsurifune, Sergeant Jones Henry, and Resistance fighter Swede Scorden struggle to regain normalcy and any contact with the shimmering, fish-filled sea. Lost honor, fallen friends, their cultural identities gone in the wake of a nuclear blast - these fishermen-turned-soldiers have a long way to go till they regain the waters in which they feel most at home.

Welcome to Travers Corners, a dusty Montana town, where nothing much has happened since Herbert Hoover stopped for gas. Travers Corners, like most small towns, has no newspaper, no radio station; but here, large trout - no better than large trout, fictitious trout - await the angler. And apart from spreading gossip outside the McCraken’s General Store, the residents of Travers Corners love nothing more than fly fishing. Scott Waldie’s delightful cast of characters breathes life into this tiny, out-of-the-way town.

From the day that old Nana Reja found a baby abandoned under a bridge, the life of a small Mexican town forever changed. Disfigured and covered in a blanket of bees, little Simonopio is for some locals the stuff of superstition, a child kissed by the devil. But he is welcomed by landowners Francisco and Beatriz Morales, who adopt him and care for him. As he grows up, Simonopio becomes a cause for wonder to the Morales family, because when the uncannily gifted child closes his eyes, he can see what no one else can - visions of all that’s yet to come, both beautiful and dangerous.

On Christmas Eve in 1988, seven-year-old Alfie Marsden vanished in the Wentshire Forest Pass when a burst tyre forced his father, Sorrel, to stop the car. Leaving the car to summon the emergency services, Sorrel returned to find his son gone. No trace of the child, nor his remains, have ever been found. Alfie Marsden was declared officially dead in 1995. Elusive online journalist Scott King, whose Six Stories podcasts have become an internet sensation, investigates the disappearance, interviewing six witnesses, to try to find out what really happened that fateful night.

With winter looming, a small northern Anishinaabe community goes dark. Cut off, people become passive and confused. Panic builds as the food supply dwindles. While the band council and a pocket of community members struggle to maintain order, an unexpected visitor arrives, escaping the crumbling society to the south. Soon after, others follow. Frustrated by the building chaos, a group of young friends and their families turn to the land and Anishinaabe tradition in hopes of helping their community thrive again.

Berl Pickett is living in the small town of Livingston, Montana. The son of Pentecostal rug-shampooers, Pickett has never been the social toast of the town, but when he is accused of negligent homicide in the death of his former lover, he finds himself ostracized by his colleagues and realizes just how small his little village truly is. But fortunately for Berl, the very thing that sets him apart—his inability to follow the pack—proves to be his saving grace. With this inglorious hero, McGuane has created an unforgettable voyager.

Elio è un giovane sognatore, maldestro e ingenuo, ma con un talento straordinario per la pittura, che però, nel mondo contadino della Val d'Orcia di inizio Novecento, sembra solo una pericolosa mancanza di quel senso pratico che la miseria esige. Suo fratello maggiore, Cordevole, è invece un tipo pragmatico e autoritario che, ricorrendo alla violenza, proverà a plasmare Elio secondo le proprie esigenze.

We Are Unprepared is a novel about the next big storm, the one that changes our relationship to nature and each other...the superstorm that threatens to destroy a marriage, a rural Vermont town and the Eastern Seaboard when it hits. But the destruction begins months earlier, when fear infects...

Rings um die Hacienda Rosa Blanca von Hacinto Yañez in Mexiko wird nach Öl gebohrt, was aber die Farm, die ganz im Einklang mit der Natur bewirtschaftet wird, bisher wenig beeinträchtigt hat. Ihre Bewohner führen ein gutes und bescheidenes Leben, die Farm ist ihnen Heimat und Leben. Doch alles ändert sich, als ihr Besitzer ermordet wird und sich Chaney C. Collins, Präsident der Condor Oil Company, die Farm widerrechtlich aneignet, denn die Ölgesellschaft ist eine Firma mit gewaltigem Appetit.

Meet the Pomeroys: a church-going family living in a too-red house in a Texas college town. Roger, the patriarch, has impulsively gone back to school, only to find his future ambitions at odds with the temptations of the present. His wife, Georgia, tries to keep things afloat at home, but she's been feeding the bill drawer with unopened envelopes for months and never manages to confront its swelling contents. In an attempt to climb out of the holes they've dug, Roger and Georgia make a series of choices that have catastrophic consequences for their three children

For readers of My Absolute Darling and Fourth of July Creek, a "riveting and timely" Montana story about the unbreakable bond between a young man and the abandoned boy put in his care (Jess Walter), as old grievances of land and blood are visited upon them. Wendell Newman, a young ranch hand in...

1975. In the town of Rexburg, Idaho, aspiring artist Aran Rigby, his younger sister, Tamsin, and their two brothers are locked in orbit around their emotionally abusive father. Gad is the kind of man who soothes the failures of his own life by controlling the lives of others. But Aran and Tamsin are united in rebellion against their father. They understand each other. They have dreams beyond their small town.

"You go too far, my friend. You are near dangerous ground." Neil Fischer is travelling to a village in East Germany that he has unexpectedly inherited – his father’s former hometown of Marschwald. Knowing it has been left to deteriorate for decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Neil is determined to restore the derelict village to its former glory, as his demanding late father would surely have wanted. But when he arrives, he is met with hostility, mistrust and underlying menace.

Ein Vorort wie aus dem Bilderbuch – doch was machen Vorzeigebürger*innen, wenn ihre hübsche Fassade bröckelt? In Peter Huths Roman ist ein Vorort von Berlin die perfekte heile Welt für Mittelschicht-Familien – bis ein unheilvolles Gerücht die Runde macht ... Für Fine und Tim ist das malerische Fischbach vor den Toren der Großstadt das Familienparadies, von dem sie geträumt haben. Unter den anderen Eigenheimbesitzern finden sie schnell Freunde für sich und ihre Tochter. Als ein älterer Herr einen kleinen Laden für Honig, Tee und Deko eröffnet, scheint er das letzte Mosaiksteinchen im Idyll zu sein.

Als Anneloes Beekman ontdekt dat haar rijke en succesvolle echtgenoot vreemdgaat, verlaat ze hem en hun luxe ­leventje in Wassenaar. In een opwelling koopt ze een ­vervallen huis met blauwe luiken in midden-Frankrijk om er een chambres d'hôtes in te beginnen. Maar na de eerste euforie loopt ze tegen de harde werkelijkheid aan: het huis moet intensief verbouwd worden, en zelf kan ze amper een schroef van een spijker onderscheiden. Gelukkig maakt ze gemakkelijk vrienden. Met hulp van de Nederlandse klusjesman Sjoerd, de Franse kokkin Georgette en nog meer kleurrijke streekgenoten weet ze een nieuw bestaan op te bouwen.

Ein unerwartetes Erbe führt Henriette Hohnhold und ihre Familie 1903 nach Timmendorfer Strand: Die Villa Sommerwind, die nun den Hohnholds gehört, soll nach dem Willen von Vater Eberhart ein exquisites Hotel werden. Vom ersten Tag an ist Henriette die rechte Hand ihres Vaters und stürzt sich begeistert in die vielfältigen Aufgaben. Doch eines Morgens macht sie eine Beobachtung, die zu einem heftigen Streit zwischen Vater und Tochter führt. Aufgelöst läuft die junge Frau davon und findet sich schließlich in Niendorf wieder, wo sich Ole, der Sohn eines Fischers, rührend um sie kümmert.

Un caluroso día de verano de 1969, todo el pueblo se reúne para recibir la visita de la reina Juliana. Es una celebración inolvidable, pero justo cuando la monarca está a punto de entrar en el coche para irse, llegan Hanne Kann y su madre. La reina, en una acción inesperada, acaricia la mejilla de la niña y ofrece la mano a Anna Kann. Años más tarde, Jan Kann vuelve a casa para solucionar algunas cosas y de nuevo se siente abrumado por la rabia. Ya es hora de llegar al fondo de la cuestión.

Billy Edgewater is a harbinger of doom. Estranged from his family, discharged from the navy and touched by a rising desperation, he sets out hitchhiking home to East Tennessee, where his father is slowly dying. On the road, separately, are Sudy and Bradshaw, brother and sister, and a one-armed con man named Roosterfish. All, in one way or another, have their pasts and futures embroiled with D. L. Harkness, a predator in all the ways there are.