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Title details for Unfinished Desires by Gail Godwin - Available

Unfinished Desires

A Novel

by Gail Godwin
Kimberly Farr
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
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1 of 1 copy available
From Gail Godwin, three-time National Book Award finalist and acclaimed New York Times bestselling author of Evensong and The Finishing School, comes a sweeping new novel of friendship, loyalty, rivalries, redemption, and memory.
It is the fall of 1951 at Mount St. Gabriel’s, an all-girls school tucked away in the mountains of North Carolina. Tildy Stratton, the undisputed queen bee of her class, befriends Chloe Starnes, a new student recently orphaned by the untimely and mysterious death of her mother. Their friendship fills a void for both girls but also sets in motion a chain of events that will profoundly affect the course of many lives, including the girls’ young teacher and the school’s matriarch, Mother Suzanne Ravenel.
Fifty years on, the headmistress relives one pivotal night, trying to reconcile past and present, reaching back even further to her own senior year at the school, where the roots of a tragedy are buried.
In Unfinished Desires, a beloved author delivers a gorgeous new novel in which thwarted desires are passed on for generations–and captures the rare moment when a soul breaks free.  

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    January 5, 2010

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781415966594
      • File size: 535369 KB
      • Duration: 18:35:21

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Mother Suzanne Ravenel is headmistress at Mount St. Gabriel, a girls' school in North Carolina. Having been asked to document the school's history, she becomes fixated on one tragic night that propelled many lives into a tailspin. With a credible Appalachian accent, Kimberly Farr introduces listeners to each character with precision and diversity. She breathes life into Mother Ravenel's difficulties that school year and is especially skilled at portraying the friendship between Tildy, a wily instigator, and Chloe, a new student recently orphaned by the mysterious death of her mother. This complicated relationship is pivotal in a chain of events that reverses the fortunes of many lives, including those of a pretty young teacher and the headmistress herself. B.J.P. (c) AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      September 7, 2009
      Bestselling author Godwin (Evensong
      ; The Finishing School
      ) brings readers back in time to the early 1950s in this endearing story of Catholic school girls and the nuns who oversee them. As Mother Suzanne Ravenel begins a memoir of her 60-plus years at Mount St. Gabriel's School in Mountain City, N.C., she's forced to re-examine the “toxic year” of 1951–1952, one of her worst at the school—beginning with the arrival of ninth-grade student Chloe Starnes, who's recently lost her mother, and Mother Malloy, a beautiful young nun assigned to the freshman class. Starnes and Malloy's arrivals presage a shift in the ranks of freshman Tildy Stratton's cruel clique, with significant consequences for all involved. Change, when it finally comes, stems from the girls' attempt to revive a play written years before by Ravenel. Godwin captures brilliantly the subtleties of friendships between teenage girls, their ambivalence toward religion and their momentous struggle to define people—especially themselves. Poignant and transporting, this faux memoir makes a convincing, satisfying novel.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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