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The Law of Dreams : A Novel

The Law of Dreams : A Novel Paperback - 2007

by Peter Behrens

  • Used
  • very good
  • Paperback

Telling the story of a young mans epic passage from innocence to experience during The Great Famine in Ireland of 1847, this novel is gorgeously written in incandescent language that unleashes the sexual and psychological energies of a lost world.

Description

Random House Publishing Group, 2007. Paperback. Very Good. May have limited writing in cover pages. Pages are unmarked. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less.Dust jacket quality is not guaranteed.
Used - Very Good
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Details

  • Title The Law of Dreams : A Novel
  • Author Peter Behrens
  • Binding Paperback
  • Edition Reprint
  • Condition Used - Very Good
  • Pages 416
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher Random House Publishing Group, New York
  • Date 2007
  • Bookseller's Inventory # G0812978005I4N00
  • ISBN 9780812978001 / 0812978005
  • Weight 0.75 lbs (0.34 kg)
  • Dimensions 8.26 x 5.55 x 0.94 in (20.98 x 14.10 x 2.39 cm)
  • Themes
    • Chronological Period: 19th Century
    • Cultural Region: Ireland
    • Interdisciplinary Studies: Canadiana
  • Library of Congress subjects Historical fiction, Bildungsromans
  • Library of Congress Catalog Number 2007004343
  • Dewey Decimal Code FIC

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Summary

Ireland, 1846. A boy on a life-changing journey which lives in the mind long after the final page. It is 1846, the height of the Great Hunger, and young Fergus is forced to grow up fast. Following the destruction of his home, he loses not only his family but everything he has ever loved. So begins an epic journey from innocence to experience that takes him from the west coast of Ireland to the docks and bordellos of Liverpool, and across the Atlantic. Along his journey he will meet bandit chiefs and railway navvies, ‘pearl boys' and daring girls, and the willful Molly, who will teach him the ways of the world.

Categories

Media reviews

“Absorbing, unsparing, and beautifully written . . . [a] masterly novel.”
–The New York Times Book Review

“Stunningly lyric . . . a work of richly empathetic imagination that reminds us once again of how powerful historical fiction can be in skilled hands.”
–Los Angeles Times

“Superb . . . an emotional epic bearing echoes of Melville and Ondaatje, conveying scents and shimmers of a vanished world under the skin of our own.”
–Jonathan Lethem, author of You Don’t Love Me Yet

“Extraordinary . . . a novel that animates the past this vibrantly should make volumes of mere history blush.”
–The Washington Post Book World

“Sprawling, cinematic, exquisitely detailed, exactingly researched, and keenly felt . . . a powerful work of excavation that achieves what historical fiction often can’t–credibility, along with a sense of the transportive.”
–Boston Phoenix

“Riveting . . . Behrens turns the archetypal immigrant’s journey into Homeric epic.”
–The Providence Journal

“A beautifully written, poetically inspired tale of heroism, love, yes and sex, and the triumph of the human spirit.”
–Malachy McCourt, author of A Monk Swimming

Citations

  • New York Times Book Review, 10/28/2007, Page 28

About the author

Peter Behrens's first novel, The Law of Dreams, won the Governor General's Award, Canada's most prestigious book prize, and has been published in nine languages. The New York Times Book Review called his second novel, The O'Briens, "a major accomplishment." He is also the author of the novel Carry Me and two collections of short stories, Night Driving and Travelling Light. His stories and essays have appeared in The Atlantic, The New York Times, and many anthologies. Awards he has received include a Wallace Stegner Fellowship in Creative Writing at Stanford University. A native of Montreal, he is currently a fellow at Harvard University's Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.