Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
On the Water

On the Water

Van Den Brink, H. M.
Vincent, Paul

Paperback

Historical FictionLiterary Fiction

Publisher Price: $18.00

ISBN10: 0802138950
ISBN13: 9780802138958
Publisher: Grove Press
Published: Apr 4 2002
Pages: 144
Weight: 0.38
Height: 0.40 Width: 5.64 Depth: 8.36
Language: English
A powerful tale of romantic regret (The Seattle Post-Intelligencer), Los Angeles Times Best Book of 2001, and finalist for the French Prix Medicis, On the Water tells the poignant story of Anton and David, two oarsmen trained by a mysterious German coach in the golden Amsterdam summer of 1939. Anton stands on the banks of his beloved river years later, on the wintry eve of Holland's liberation, and mourns a lost world. David, his Jewish teammate and quiet obsession from that magical summer, has disappeared, and the boathouse is now derelict and deserted. Spare, lyrical, and nuanced, On the Water is quietly enormous, capturing a moment so precise and exact it is as if caught in amber -- a rowing club in Amsterdam and two of its competitors from very different backgrounds, set against the backdrop of the oncoming war. The menace of tragedy to come is subtly woven into the story of the two boys whose only concerns are practices, races, and themselves. In the end, all that is left for Anton is the memory of his supreme happiness that summer. ...beautiful, vivid writing...van den Brink describes the grace, ecstasy, and agony of rowing, the miracle of its teamwork harmony. -- Carmela Ciuraru, The Washington Post Book World [A] small miracle of a book. -- Daniel Topolski, The Guardian

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