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The
2003 Award
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The Gardens of Kyoto by Kate Walbert
Nominated by:
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Publisher of Nominated Edition: Scribner ISBN 0684869489 |
| the complete A-Z listing of nominated authors. |
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ABOUT
THE BOOK
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| Forty
years after World War II, Ellen relates the events of that period, beginning
with the death of her favourite cousin, Randall, with whom she had shared
Easter Sundays, secrets and, perhaps, love. In an isolated, aging Maryland
farmhouse, Randall had grown up among ghosts: his father, Sterling, present
only in body, his mother, dead at a young age and the apparitions of a slave
family. When Ellen receives a package after Randall's death, containing
his diary and a book called The Gardens of Kyoto, her bond to him is cemented,
and the mysteries of his short life star to unravel. The narrative moves back and forth between Randall's death in 1945 and the autumn six years later, when Ellen meets Lieutenant Henry Rock at a college football game on the eve of his departure for Korea. But it soon becomes apparent that Ellen's memory may be distorting reality, altered as it is by a mix of imagination and disappointment, and the truth about Randall and Henry - and others - may be hidden. The Gardens of Kyoto spins several parallel stories of the emotional damage done by war. Like the mysterious arrangements of the intricate sand, rock and gravel gardens of Kyoto, they gracefully assemble into a single, rich mosaic. |
| ABOUT THE AUTHOR |
| Kate Walbert has published fiction and articles in the Paris Review, The New York Times and numerous other publications. The recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Connecticut Commission of the Arts, she is the author of Where She Went, a short-story collection. Walbert teaches writing at Yale University and lives in New York City and Stony Creek, Connecticut. The Gardens of Kyoto is her first novel. |
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Find out more about the author on the following websites:
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