Sign-In
Cart
Gray
Hardcover
General FictionLiterary Fiction
ISBN13: 9781737516606
Publisher: Middlesex Press
Published: Jul 27 2021
Pages: 316
Weight: 1.18
Height: 0.88 Width: 5.50 Depth: 8.50
Language: English
GRAY is a viscerally lush, sometimes playful, and unflinching exploration of loss, divorce, midlife sexuality, and the search for fulfillment, even in the face of death.
Vera Mine has a big problem. An ordinary middle-aged white American woman, Vera is a realist, yet fragile: unable to sugarcoat and always fighting the demons that question what she sees, what needs to be done. Unknowingly, she wants to be a modern-day interpretation of the Greek Goddess Athena. However, unlike Athena, with her crown of flowers and natural ability to judge and take action, everything Vera sees around her is gray, never even slightly black or white. She struggles to speak up, change the course of events, and considers herself a coward. Vera surrounds herself with paralyzing clouds of Gray.
Vera Mine's father is dying. She sits beside his hospital bed and watches the parade of people come and go. Only a few are his travelers, the people he holds close as he passes on. Faced with questions of meaning and mortality, Vera reflects on her life and the travelers she has encountered on the way. Finally, she understands what she, and people like her, need to experience a satisfying life and a good death, or as good as a death can be. After her father's funeral and still mending, Vera surprises her friends and family when she sets out with great gusto on a mission to fulfill her newly realized needs and makes her home on the honeyed Greek island of Naxos.
In a place where everyone is a stranger, Vera finally has the opportunity to look inward and explore her creativity. She forges connections and is treated as an honored guest by a local family, who become part of her everyday life. But the tranquility doesn't last. She immediately falls for Demetri, the island demigod, and finds herself caught up in hurtful lies and shocking secret plans that threaten to upend the idyllic island town. Soon she will be confronted with a choice to remain, once again, on the sidelines or make a judgment and find the courage within herself to act.
In her exciting debut novel, Roy weaves a brilliant narrative latticework in striking prose with measured surprises of lovely lyricism. The narration takes readers on an intimate ride in and out of Vera's thoughts as she confronts and attempts to understand death, doubt, her cowardice, judgment, her midlife sexuality, and the amazing power of humility.
Giving Back
20% of all royalties from hardcover book sales will be donated to the Worldwide Fistula Fund. Learn more at https: //worldwidefistulafund.org/.
Also in
Literary Fiction
Elizabeth Spencer: Novels & Stories (Loa #344): The Voice at the Back Door / The Light in the Piazza / Knights and Dragons / Stories
Spencer, Elizabeth
Hardcover
James Fenimore Cooper: The Leatherstocking Tales Vol. 1 (Loa #26): The Pioneers / The Last of the Mohicans / The Prairie
Cooper, James Fenimore
Hardcover
The Underworld U.S.A. Trilogy, Volume I: American Tabloid, the Cold Six Thousand; Introduction by Thomas Mallon
Ellroy, James
Hardcover
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Other Stories (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)
Stevenson, Robert Louis
Paperback
Philip Roth: Novels 1973-1977 (Loa #165): The Great American Novel / My Life as a Man / The Professor of Desire
Roth, Philip
Hardcover
The Patrick Melrose Novels: Never Mind, Bad News, Some Hope, and Mother's Milk
St Aubyn, Edward
Paperback