In The Hours,Michael Cunningham, who is recognized as "one of our very best writers" (Richard Eder, Los Angeles Times), draws inventively on the life and work of Virginia Woolf to tell the story of a group of contemporary characters who are struggling with the conflicting claims of love and inheritance, hope and despair.
The novel opens with an evocation of Woolf's last days before her suicide in 1941, and moves to the stories of two modern American women who are trying to make rewarding lives for themselves in spite of the demands of friends, lovers, and family.
Clarissa Vaughan is a book editor who lives in present-day Greenwich Village; when we meet her, she is buying flowers to display at a party for her friend Richard, an ailing poet who has just won a major literary prize. Laura Brown is a housewife in postwar California who is bringing up her only son and looking for her true life outside of her stifling marriage.
With rare ease and assurance, Cunningham makes the two women's lives converge with Virginia Woolf's in an unexpected and heartbreaking way during the party for Richard. As the novel jump-cuts through the twentieth century, every line resonates with Cunningham's clear, strong, surprisingly lyrical contemporary voice.
Passionate, profound and deeply moving, The Hours is Michael Cunningham's most remarkable achievement to date.
Winner of the 1999 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction and the 1999 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.
BOOK REVIEWS
Media Reviews
Publishers Weekly
This book more than fulfills the promise of Cunningham's 1990 debut, A Home at the End of the World
The Washington Post Book World - Jameson Currier
[Cunningham] has deftly created something original, a trio of richly interwoven tales that alternate with one another chapter by chapter, each of them entering the thoughts of a character as she moves through the small details of a day.... Cunningham's emulation of such a revered writer as Woolf is courageous, and this is his most mature and masterful work.
The New York Times Book Review - Michael Wood
...the overall impression is that of a delicate, triumphant glance, an acknowledgment of Woolf that takes her into Cunningham's own territory, a place of late-century danger but also of treasurable hours.
USA Today - Ann Pritchard
Michael Cunningham's The Hours is that rare combination a smashing literary tour de force and an utterly invigorating reading experience. If this book does not make you jump up from the sofa, looking at life and literature in different ways, check to see if you have a pulse...
The Los Angeles Times Sunday Book Review
[Cunningham] has fashioned a fictional instrument of intricacy and remarkable beauty. It is a kaleidoscope whose four shining and utterly unlike pieces--the lives of two fictional characters, of a real writer, and her novel--combine, separate and tumble in continually shifting and startlingly suggestive patterns.
Recent Reader Reviews
Rated of 5
by H_Jade Beautiful read The Hours is one of those books that leaves phrases resounding in your mind long after you have put it down. The poetic prose isn't quite Virginia Woolf's, but Cunningham does a wonderful job of adapting the stream-of-consiousness style and making... Read More
Rated of 5
by sneha a true criticism A book written with the only an aim of becoming famous. He is not bothered to tell the readers the story in an easier but understandable way. He has no knowledge of the past,present and future of the characters. An utter mixing of meaningless... Read More
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USA Today - Ann Pritchard
of 5
by H_Jade
of 5
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