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Published Apr 2001
336 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
Oskar Voxlauer is in flight from his past—from his bourgeois Austrian upbringing; from horrific memories of fighting on the Italian front in 1917 as a teenage recruit; and from the twenty years he has spent in the Ukraine watching his socialist ideals crumble and the life of the woman he loved slowly waste away. Alone, he finally decides to return to the Austrian village of his birth, where his mother is waiting to greet a son she hasn’t seen since he was a boy.
But the year is 1938, and despite Oskar’s attempt to live a reclusive existence as a gamekeeper in the hills, he cannot escape the tensions that are threatening the once tranquil village of Niessen. Hitler marches into Austria and the Black Shirts come to the valley. Voxlauer watches as his Jewish friend and benefactor is driven to ruin. The only things saving him—a 'Red,' a deserter and a 'Yid lover'—from the attentions of the SS seem to be the respect the community has for his parents and his growing love for the mysterious Else Bauer, cousin of the new SS Führer.
In his extraordinary first novel, John Wray has given both a poetic evocation of the Austrian landscape and an acute portrait of the dark side of its past. His subtle and human understanding of the ambiguities of history, the complexities of his characters and the stunning richness of his prose mark him as one of America's most gifted new writers.
"Wray's first novel displays psychological acuity, a mastery of dialogue and an unfailing historical empathy, and should garner deserved raves." - Publishers Weekly.
"More a character study than a moral tale, this is a quietly memorable first novel." - Library Journal.
"Brilliant. ... A truly arresting work of fiction.... Is it really possible, the reader will wonder, for a young American to have written such a book?" – The New York Times Book Review.
"Elegantly written, hypnotic." – The Washington Post Book Review.
"Studded with precise, exquisite descriptions ... Wray is capable of writing with almost painful tenderness.... The Right Hand of Sleep make[s] another time seem astonishingly alive." – Chicago Tribune.
"Wray's novel is hampered by several instances of inconsistent characterization .... Equally confusing are the italicized sections that initially represent Voxlauer's flashback monologues but then turn into Kurt's own recollections late in the book. Such stylistic lapses weaken Wray's otherwise tight web of small-town relationships." - Book Magazine.
"A first novel that's really about something, blessedly free of authorial navel-gazing." - Kirkus Reviews.
This information about The Right Hand of Sleep was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
John Wray is the author of Godsend, The Lost Time Accidents, Lowboy, Canaan's Tongue, and The Right Hand of Sleep. The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Whiting Award, a Cullman Fellowship from the New York Public Library, and a Mary Ellen von der Heyden Fellowship from the American Academy in Berlin, he was named one of Granta's Best Young American Novelists in 2007. A citizen of the United States and Austria, he lives in New York City.
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