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Knopf
January 2009
On Sale: January 6, 2009
272 pages
ISBN: 0375401954
EAN: 9780375401954
Hardcover
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Fiction
A rich, wonderfully alive novel from one of our most
admired and best-loved writers, her first book in nine
years. Lark and Termite is set during the 1950s in West
Virginia and Korea. It is a story of the power of loss and
love, the echoing ramifications of war, family secrets,
dreams and ghosts, and the unseen, almost magical bonds
that unite and sustain us. At its center, two children: Lark, on the verge of
adulthood, and her brother, Termite, a child unable to walk
and talk but filled with radiance. Around them, their
mother, Lola, a haunting but absent presence; their aunt
Nonie, a matronly, vibrant woman in her fifties, who raises
them; and Termite’s father, Corporal Robert Leavitt, who
finds himself caught up in the chaotic early months of the
Korean War. Told with deep feeling, the novel invites us to enter into
the hearts and thoughts of the leading characters, even
into Termite’s intricate, shuttered consciousness. We are
with Leavitt, trapped by friendly fire alongside the Korean
children he tries to rescue. We see Lark’s dreams for
Termite and her own future, and how, with the aid of a
childhood love and a spectral social worker, she makes them
happen. We learn of Lola’s love for her soldier husband and
her children, and unravel the mystery of her relationship
with Nonie. We discover the lasting connections between
past and future on the night the town experiences an
overwhelming flood, and we follow Lark and Termite as their
lives are changed forever.
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