A Change in Altitude

A Novel

Contributors

By Anita Shreve

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$15.99

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$20.99 CAD

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  1. Trade Paperback $15.99 $20.99 CAD
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  3. Audiobook Download (Unabridged)

This item is a preorder. Your payment method will be charged immediately, and the product is expected to ship on or around May 4, 2010. This date is subject to change due to shipping delays beyond our control.

Margaret and Patrick have been married just a few months when they set off on what they hope will be a great adventure-a year living in Kenya. Margaret quickly realizes there is a great deal she doesn’t know about the complex mores of her new home, and about her own husband.

A British couple invites the newlyweds to join on a climbing expedition to Mount Kenya, and they eagerly agree. But during their harrowing ascent, a horrific accident occurs. In the aftermath of the tragedy, Margaret struggles to understand what happened on the mountain and how these events have transformed her and her marriage, perhaps forever.

A Change in Altitude illuminates the inner landscape of a couple, the irrevocable impact of tragedy, and the elusive nature of forgiveness. With stunning language and striking emotional intensity, Anita Shreve transports us to the exotic panoramas of Africa and into the core of our most intimate relationships.

Genre:

  • PRAISE FOR A CHANGE IN ALTITUDE:

    "Visual and sharply focused....Shreve knows how to keep a reader engaged."
    Valerie Sayers, Washington Post
  • "No one is better at gently, but thoroughly probing the interior life of her characters than Anita Shreve....A Change in Altitude reflects many of Shreve's familiar themes: loss and grief, the relationship between a man and woman, and how one moment can change a life forever. Shreve weaves a strong mix of exotic Africa and interesting characters, producing a potent story that will keep readers thinking about them long after the last page of the novel."
    Mary Foster, Newsday
  • "Shreve takes readers from Nairobi's lush suburbs to its fetid slums, from the drawing-room world of the white gentry to that of its black servants....A Change in Altitude rises a few thousand feet above typical women's fiction."
    Olivia Barker, USA Today
  • "Prepare to cancel all your appointments as you race through this dramatic saga....Enthralling. The mountains Margaret must climb-literally, and figuratively-are difficult ones. Readers will be eager to learn if she successfully scales the peak."
    Eliza Borné, Bookpage
  • "A winner. Once again, Shreve's fans can approach her book with the confident anticipation that she will provide yet another satisfying experience. A Change in Altitude is an unusual kind of page-turner, part whodunit, part adventure story....Readers will vicariously enjoy all facets of this  adventure in Africa from the safety of their own armchair."
    Diane Makovsky, Free-Lance Star

On Sale
May 4, 2010
Page Count
336 pages
Publisher
Back Bay Books
ISBN-13
9780316020718

Anita Shreve

About the Author

Anita Shreve passed away on Thursday, March 29 after a long and very private fight with cancer.  Anita was the author of 18 novels, 14 of which were published by Little, Brown, beginning with Resistance in 1997.  Her novel The Weight of Water won the L.L. Winship/PEN New England Award and was shortlisted for the Orange Prize.  In 1999, Oprah Winfrey selected The Pilot’s Wife for Oprah’s Book Club, and it went on to sell more than 3 million copies.  In all of her work, Anita deftly explored the intricacies and nuances of relationships between men and women, often hinging on the ripple effects of a single, dramatic moment.  She wrote the details of history, from the 19th century to the 1920s to World War II, as if she had lived them herself.

Of her novel Rescue, Augusten Borroughs said,  “Her prose is so flawlessly disciplined and elegant; the characters seem too real to be made out of words and the story she unfolds is gripping, fiercely intelligent and deeply moving.”  These words describe the work but also Anita herself.  Anita was a beloved figure for all of us who had the privilege of working with her.  She was both elegant and modest, kind, funny, and always observant of every nuance of human interaction.  She had impeccable taste and was a thoughtful gift-giver, with a warm laugh and an abiding love for her Boston Red Sox, the Maine coastline, the occasional light beer, and, above all, her children.  She was a beloved wife, mother, grandmother, and friend and we will miss her deeply.  Our thoughts are with her family in this difficult time.

 

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