The Winter Vault

Product Description <br/>Award-winning poet and novelist Anne Michaels gives us a love story of extraordinary depth and complexity, a mesmerizing tale that juxtaposes historical events with the most intimate moments of individual lives.<br/><br/>In 1964, a newly married Canadian couple settles into a Nile River houseboat moored below the towering figures of Abu Simbel. Avery is one of the engineers responsible for the dismantling and reconstruction of the temple as it’s rescued from the rising waters of the Aswan Dam. He is a “machine-worshipper,” yet exquisitely sensitive to the dichotomy of creation and destruction of which machines are capable. Jean is a botanist by avocation and passion, interested in everything that grows. They had met on the banks of the St. Lawrence River and watched together as the construction of the seaway changed the course of the river and swallowed towns, homes, lives. Now, at the edge of another world about to be lost forever, Avery and Jean create their own world, exchanging the “moments that are the mortar of our days, innocent memories we don’t know we hold until given the gift of the eagerness of another.”<br/><br/>But that gift will not be enough to bind them when tragedy strikes, and they will go back to separate lives in Toronto. Avery returns to school to study architecture, and Jean enters the life of Lucjan, a Polish émigré artist. Lucjan’s haunting stories of occupied Warsaw draw Jean further and further away from Avery. But, in time, he will also offer her the chance for forgiveness, consolation, and, finally, her own, most essential life.<br/><br/>Stunning in its explorations of both the physical and emotional worlds of its characters, intensely moving and lyrical,<br/>The Winter Vault is a radiant work of fiction.<br/> From Publishers Weekly <br/>Starred Review. Profound loss, desolation and rebuilding are the literal and metaphoric themes of Michaels's exquisite second novel (after<br/>Fugitive Pieces). Avery Escher is a Canadian engineer recently moved to a houseboat on the Nile with his new wife, Jean, in 1964. Avery's part of a team of engineers trying to salvage Abu Simbel, which is about to be flooded by the new Aswan dam. His wife, Jean, meanwhile, carries with her childhood memories of flooded villages and the heavy absence of her mother, who died when she was young. Now, the sight of the entire Nubian nation being evacuated from their native land before it's flooded affects both Avery and Jean intensely. Jean's pregnancy seems a possible redemption, but their daughter is stillborn, and Jean falls into despair, shunning the former intimacy of her marriage. When the couple returns to Canada, they set up separate lives and another man enters the picture. Michaels is especially impressive at making a rundown of construction materials or the contents of a market as evocative as the shared moments between two young lovers. A tender love story set against an intriguing bit of history is handled with uncommon skill.<br/>(May)<br/>Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.<br/> From Bookmarks Magazine <br/>Anne Michaels has published several acclaimed poetry collections, including The Weight of Oranges and Miner’s Pond. Her background as a poet shines through in The Winter Vault, which awed critics with its many elegant, vibrant, and luminous passages and Michaels’s endless curiosity about science, engineering, and architecture. Unfortunately, many of these same critics were conflicted in their overall reviews: they reluctantly felt hampered by rolling monologues, pedantic segments, uninspiring characters, and an awkward story structure. The San Francisco Chronicle even remarked: “[T]hese long recitations of memory and conjecture, while exquisite, grow exhausting.” Overall, critics cited this latest from Michaels as a beautiful, important novel, but they were skeptical of its widespread appeal.<br/>Copyright 2009 Bookmarks Publishing LLC<br/> From Booklist <br/>The long