"Nothing short of astonishing." -- New Yorker
"A thing of beauty--lucidly written, artfully ordered, riddled with riddles and undergirded with dark layers of philosophical meditations." -- Los Angeles Times
For all of her life, 44 year old Reta Winters has enjoyed the useful monotony of happiness: a loving family, good friends, growing success as a writer of light 'summertime' fiction. But this placid existence is cracked wide open when her beloved eldest daughter, Norah, drops out to sit on a gritty street corner, silent but for the sign around her neck that reads 'GOODNESS.' Reta's search for what drove her daughter to such a desperate statement turns into an unflinching and surprisingly funny meditation on where we find meaning and hope.
The final book from Pulitzer Prize-winner Carol Shields, Unless, is a harrowing but ultimately consoling story of one family's anguish and healing, proving Shields's mastery of extraordinary fictions about ordinary life.
- ISBN10 0007141076
- ISBN13 9780007141074
- Publish Date 1 May 2002 (first published 30 April 2002)
- Publish Status Cancelled
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher HarperCollins Publishers
- Imprint HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 224
- Language English