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From the celebrated author of The English Patient and In the Skin of a Lion comes a remarkable new novel of intersecting lives that ranges across continents and time.
Knopf
June 2007
On Sale: May 26, 2007
288 pages ISBN: 0307266354 EAN: 9780307266354 Hardcover
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Fiction
In the 1970s in Northern California, near Gold Rush country, a father and his teenage daughters, Anna and Claire, work their farm with the help of Coop, an enigmatic young man who makes his home with them. Theirs is a makeshift family, until it is riven by an incident of violenceβof both hand and heartβthat sets fire to the rest of their lives. Divisadero takes us from the city of San Francisco to the raucous backrooms of Nevadaβs casinos and eventually to the landscape of south-central France. It is here, outside a small rural village, that Anna becomes immersed in the life and the world of a writer from an earlier timeβLucien Segura. His compelling story, which has its beginnings at the turn of the century, circles around βthe raw truthβ of Annaβs own life, the one sheβs left behind but can never truly leave. And as the narrative moves back and forth in time and place, we discover each of the characters managing to find some foothold in a present rough hewn from the past. Breathtakingly evoked and with unforgettable characters, Divisadero is a multilayered novel about passion, loss, and the unshakable past, about the often discordant demands of family, love, and memory. It is Michael Ondaatjeβs most intimate and beautiful novel to date.
 Media BuzzPBS News Hour - December 27, 2011 Tavis Smiley - June 22, 2007 Morning Edition - June 8, 2007 Weekend Edition Saturday - June 2, 2007
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