7/2/2023 0 Comments Shipstead great circle![]() ![]() ![]() “It wasn’t a driving obsession,” the author clarified in her reserved and focused way, but something “I just had to see through out of sheer doggedness.” At 600 pages, “Great Circle” spans a century, as well as the North and South Poles and at least three continents (and many islands) in between. The scope and structure of “Astonish Me” presaged the scale of “Great Circle” but the stakes in her new book are higher - for its heroine, literally life or death.įinishing the book sometimes felt that way too. Times Book Prize for first fiction seemed to seal Shipstead’s reputation as an impeccable craftswoman of upmarket beach reads.įor her 2014 follow-up, “ Astonish Me,” Shipstead, then barely out of her 20s, traded the economic 1% for the dancing elite, tracing the repercussions of an American ballerina’s affair with a Baryshnikov-like superstar. The “perfect summer romp” (per the Washington Post) and winner of an L.A. “Great Circle” was a departure for Shipstead, whose 2012 debut, “ Seating Arrangements,” had all the “bells and smells” of High WASP: A wealthy brood tries not to unravel during their eldest daughter’s wedding on Cape Cod. All of it would serve her in the biggest challenge of her career so far: taming the once-unwieldy novel out next week. Her childhood enthusiasms were retooled into grown-up passions. She became a daredevil world traveler who reveled in her independence. ![]() Domesticating fear changed Shipstead’s life. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |