THE LIGHTHOUSE ROAD
Against the wilds of sea and wood, a young immigrant woman settles into life outside Duluth in the 1890s, still shocked at finding herself alone in a new country, abandoned and adrift. In the early 1920s, her son, now grown, falls in love with the one woman he shouldn’t and uses his best skills to build them their own small ark to escape. But their pasts travel with them, threatening to capsize even their fragile hope. In this triumphant new novel, Peter Geye has crafted another deeply moving tale of a misbegotten family shaped by the rough landscape where they live at the mercy of wildlife and weather—and by the rough edges of their own breaking hearts.
Against the wilds of sea and wood, a young immigrant woman settles into life outside Duluth in the 1890s, still shocked at finding herself alone in a new country, abandoned and adrift. In the early 1920s, her son, now grown, falls in love with the one woman he shouldn’t and uses his best skills to build them their own small ark to escape. But their pasts travel with them, threatening to capsize even their fragile hope. In this triumphant new novel, Peter Geye has crafted another deeply moving tale of a misbegotten family shaped by the rough landscape where they live at the mercy of wildlife and weather—and by the rough edges of their own breaking hearts.
- Unbridled Books
- Hardcover
- October 2012
- 304 Pages
- 9781609530846
Buy the Book
$24.95
About Peter Geye
Peter Geye received his MFA from the University of New Orleans and his PhD from Western Michigan University, where he was editor of Third Coast. He was born and raised in Minneapolis and continues to live there with his wife and three children. He is the author of the award winning novel, Safe from the Sea.
Praise
“To be submerged in the frothing, watery world of Peter Geye’s The Lighthouse Road is to be baptized anew in the promise of American letters. I defy you to bear witness to the tormented tenderness of Odd Eide, to suffer and love and row beside him in his skiff, without throwing down your nets. Here is an epic that spans more than generations. Here is an epic that spans the topography between hell-dark bear dens and moonlit lake water. Here is a novel that charts the whole of the human heart.”—Bruce Machart, author of The Wake of Forgiveness
“No author today writes from a sense of place as brilliantly as Peter Geye. The Lighthouse Road takes place in a broodingly atmospheric Northern Minnesota, peopled by tragic characters so influenced by their unforgiving environment, they can’t recognize love when they see it. This is a story that lingers long after you turn the last page.”—Melanie Benjamin, author of Alice I Have Been
“The idea of encapsulating any good novel in two or three sentences is silly. Good novels are all similar in one way: they are messy. And complicated. The simple facts of this book contain whiskey, an apothecary, fish and boats. Peter Geye, in The Lighthouse Road has created a world that is great fun to inhabit for however many, or few, hours it takes.”—Hans Weyandt, Micawber’s Books, MN
“The Lighthouse Road is exciting, moving, surprising, and original. I highly recommend it for individual enjoyment and for lively book club discussions.”—Nancy Simpson Brice, Book Vault, IA