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Literary Fiction
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Publisher: Chronicle
At her book launch party at Longfellow Books in her hometown Portland, Maine, Monica Wood read three passages from her third novel, Any Bitter Thing (Chronicle Books; May, 2005) to a standing-room-only crowd. Richard Russo has celebrated Monica Wood's fiction as 'thoroughly captivating...warm and wise and beautifully written,' and Andre Dubus III praised it as 'luminous and graceful and entertaining yet transcendent.' Any Bitter Thing, Wood's brilliant new novel, is her breakout book, a timely, gripping, and compassionate tale of family, faith, and deeply hidden truths. One of its greatest strengths is its continuous ability to defy expectations. It's not what you think. It is worse. In the opening scene, Lizzy Mitchell is hit by a car and left to die. Lizzy Mitchell was raised from the age of two by her uncle, a Catholic priest. When she was nine, he was falsely accused of improprieties with her and dismissed from his church, and she was sent away to boarding school. Now thirty years old and in a failing marriage, she lays near death in the emergency room of a hospital when she is visited by her Uncle, who has been dead for the past twenty years. What she discovers when she sets out to find the truths surrounding the accident--and about the accusations that led to her uncle's death--does more than change her life. With deft insight into the snares of the human heart, Monica Wood has written an intimate and emotionally expansive novel full of understanding and hope. In addition to the reading, Monica Wood autographed Any Bitter Thing and spoke to PubBuzz about the roles of memory and religion in her life and her work.
Author Information: Monica Wood was born and still lives in Maine, which is also where her fiction takes place. Her fiction, book reviews, and articles appear in numerous magazines and literary journals. She is also the author of Ernie's Ark (Chronicle Books; July, 2002), a collection of stories, which includes the Pushcart Prize winning title story. Bestselling author Richard Russo called her second novel My Only Story (Chronicle Books; June, 2000), 'warm and wise and beautifully written.' Publishers Weekly described her first novel, Secret Language (Faber & Faber; January, 1993), as 'fiercely lyrical.' Any Bitter Thing (Chronicle Books; May, 2005) is Monica Wood's third novel.
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