Almost Heaven

by Marianne Wiggins

Book Overview

With this breakneck story of love and loss, the award-winning author of Evidence of Things Unseen and Properties of Thirst, Marianne Wiggins delivers a compelling novel that is a series of powerful... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0517707624
• ISBN13: 9780517707623
• Release Date: September 1998
• Publisher: Crown Publishing Group (NY)
• Length: 213 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.8" x 8.7"

Customer Reviews

Heavenly!

I really enjoyed reading this book and got caught up in the affair between Melanie and Holden. I loved the metophoric referances to the weather and love and the way that the characters are so realistic. This is my second Marianne Wiggins book as I read Eveless Eden first. People who want to read this book should read Eveless Eden first because it has the same characters and explains things that are not explained in this book. I'm really impressed by this and she is fast becoming my favourite author.

Postmodern with Emotion

Marianne Wiggins writes an impressionistic, poetic and heart-breaking story. Her descriptions of emotions are wide and deep and revelatory. She weaves the numbing experience of the loss of self in war and the distressingly innocent, blank experience of amnesia. What is memory? What is feeling? Can we recover our memory without mourning its loss? If you give yourself to the depths of this book, without demanding a conventional "story" (although there is a plot) you will experience depths that turn over your heart.

griping writing of war, lose, inner life

I thoroughly enjoyed the language Marianne Wiggins used throughout her book, especially the scenes when Holden is explaining what he saw and how he reacted in Bosnia. As an ex-patriot American who just returned from "home," I thought he captured those feelings right on. Europeans never quite understand the American weather in the summer and could learn a lot with Wiggins' descriptions of the way American heat skies can get. I became somewhat bogged down in the implausibility of the trek West, despite the lush sex scenes, but was WOWED by the ending! Personally, how well a writer pulls off an ending is one of my gauges for success. Wiggins sure caught me there. One of the reviews in my book jacket tells of re-reading the book almost immediately. I can understand that.

definitely heavenly

the author's phraseology jumps out at you at expected times and you savour its impact. she weaves a subtle yet obvious plot around experiences that we all have had and takes you to boundaries of emotion few of us seldom reach. i sincerely hope there is to be sequal.