THE WOMAN WHO WALKED ON WATER

New York, N. Y., U.S.A.: Riverhead Books, 1996. 1st Edition 1st Printing. Hardcover. As New/Fine. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. Adele leaves her comfortable life in Connecticut for India, to follow a guru she has met in Chartres Cathedral. Her departure confounds her family and neighbors: Adele is beautiful; she is lucky; she possesses charisma; she is a champion swimmer whose stamina and grace astound the patrons of the exclusive resort in the Caribbean that her family visits each year. Adele's husband cannot understand what the Indian guru - an elusive, ever-changing man who indeed seems privy to some of life's mysteries - can give Adele that he cannot. Her two children worry as she grows gaunt and begins to look older than her years, and as her letters arrive less and less frequently. As we watch Adele's deepening spirituality, The Woman Who Walked on Water compellingly gives life to the writings of Rumi, Laotzu, and the Upanishads, which infuse this work with their wisdom. Yet what also emerges is a troubling portrait of a woman alone in a foreign country, surrounded by a family and culture not her own, in a dry and dusty city. Lily Tuck portrays with acumen, pathos, and humor a woman who may have found enlightenment. She also leaves us questioning Adele's fate, and our own desires for transcendence. Second novel by the author of INTERVIEWING MATISSE, OR THE WOMAN WHO DIED STANDING UP; SIAM, OR THE WOMAN WHO SHOT A MAN; LIMBO, AND OTHER PLACES I HAVE LIVED, and the Man Booker Prize winner, THE NEWS FROM PARAGUAY. As new, first edition, first printing, in fine, mylar-protected dust jacket. [Not remainder-marked or price-clipped] L51