Excerpt from All He Ever Wanted by Anita Shreve, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

I have some understanding of the potential benefits of committing one’s thoughts — and in this case, one’s memories — to paper, for I have published various monographs and essays within my field, most notably my celebrated treatise on Scott’s Marmion, and my less well known but no less critically well received commentary upon the Sir Roger de Coverley Papers in The Spectator. Of course, such a venture as that upon which I now embark this twentieth day of September 1933 is filled more with terror than with imagined reward, for I know not what feelings such a narrative may evoke; but I am determined to do so for the sake of my son, Nicodemus, who will almost certainly one day ask a question it will take all of his father’s courage to answer.

From All He Ever Wanted by Anita Shreve. Copyright 2003. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher, Little, Brown & Company.