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Traveling Light: A Novel
Author:
Thalasinos, Andrea
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Class:
Fiction
Age: Adult
Language: English
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LC: PS3620
Print Run: 50000
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ISBN-13: 9780765333025
LCCN: BD13189077
Imprint: Forge
Publisher: Tor Books
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Pub Date: 07/16/2013
Availability: Out of Print Confirmed
List: $24.99
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Hardcover
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Physical Description:
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364 pages ; 22 cm.
H 8.47",
W 5.94",
D 1.24",
0.98 lbs.
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LC Series:
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Brodart Sources:
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Brodart's Insight Catalog: Adult
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Bibliographies:
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Awards:
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Starred Reviews:
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TIPS Subjects:
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Domestic Fiction
Women's Studies
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BISAC Subjects: |
FICTION / Women
FICTION / Family Life / General
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LC Subjects:
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Dog adoption, Fiction
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SEARS Subjects: |
Adoption, Fiction
Dogs, Fiction
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Reading Programs: |
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| Annotations |
| Publisher Annotations | 03/26/2013 |
| Paula Makaikis is ashamed of her marriage. Driven out of their bedroom by Roger's compulsive hoarding, she has spent the past ten years sleeping downstairs on her husband's ratty couch. Distant and uninspired, Paula is more concerned with the robins landing on her office window ledge than her hard-earned position at the university. Until a phone call changes everything. A homeless Greek man is dying in a Queens hospital and Paula is asked to come translate. |
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| Journal Reviews |
| Booklist | 06/01/2013 |
| Smart, married, and thoroughly mired in the past, 50-year-old PhD Paula Makaikis lacks the personal power to admit her choices have left her quietly desperate after 10 years of sleeping on the couch while her hoarder husband locks himself in the bedroom every night. Paula's Greek heritage and superior intellect make her the perfect director for NYU's Center for Immigrant Studies. Yet she's internalized the stultifying messages from her proudly Old World mother ("Stop with the education, already. Men don't like too-smart women") until her self-esteem has practically vanished. When a dog named Fotis (Greek for "light") lands unexpectedly in her life, Paula impulsively abandons the city for points north. Synchronicity lands her a job at a raptor rehabilitation center in Minnesota, where her fractured heart and soul begin a long-needed process of healing. While Paula can be a difficult character to embrace due to her severe self-deprecation and paralyzing lack of decisiveness, Thalasinos' unerring interpretation of the importance of the human-animal connection makes this a solid addition to the "follow your heart and finally set yourself free" category of feel-good fiction. Trevelyan, Julie. 368p. AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION, c2013. |
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| Kirkus Reviews | 06/01/2013 |
| Ashamed of her marriage, uninspired at work, Paula Makaikis' only interest is feeding the birds on the ledge outside her office window. That is, until fate forces her to open the door to her own cage. Once the gifted, formidable head of the Center for Immigrant Studies at NYU, lately she's been content to let ambitious, younger colleagues take the reins. Ten years ago she'd married Roger only to have his hoarding push her out of his bed and out of his life. An urgent phone call from her childhood friend Celeste irrevocably redirects Paula's life. Celeste needs Paula to translate for an elderly homeless man who speaks only Greek, has lost his beloved dog to Animal Control and has only hours to live. Paula races to the hospital to find she recognizes this man--as a child, she'd called him Theo, but her mother mysteriously refuses to tell Theo's real name or his true connection to Paula. Promising Theo that she will take care of his dog, Paula becomes the owner of a wolf hybrid named Fotis ("light" in Greek). Spontaneously, Paula and Fotis hit the road, traveling north, ending up at a wildlife rehabilitation center on the Minnesota shores of Lake Superior. She is intuitively adept at handling fierce birds since she, too, knows what it means to have one's freedom clipped. As she helps heal wild eagles, Paula, of course, heals herself. She has the guidance of some new friends, including Rick, an attorney who left his own smothering job and unhappy marriage to found the refuge. Like her debut (An Echo Through the Snow, 2012), Thalasinos' sophomore novel beautifully evokes the emotional resonances of broken hearts and disappointed dreams. Yet the connection between damaged birds and damaged humans, although metaphorically neat, is too easy. Loose ends and overdrawn symbols mar this richly written tale. 368pg. KIRKUS MEDIA LLC, c2013. |
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9780765333025,dl.it[0].title
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