Swan song: an odyssey : a novel
Author:
Publisher:
Alfred A. Knopf
Pub. Date:
2020
Edition:
First edition
Language:
English
Description
A new novel, funny, wise, moving, true, as only Lisa Alther can write ("she had me laughing at 4 in the morning" --Doris Lessing), set on a cruise ship, about a woman, a doctor in charge of the ship's clinic, recovering from the loss of her longtime female lover, a much-admired writer, and coping with the high-wire madcappery of cruise ship life as she reckons with her past and feels her way into the future.
Dr. Jessie Drake, in her mid-sixties, following the sudden deaths of her parents and Kat, her partner of twenty years, has fled the Vermont life she has known for decades.
In an effort to escape the oppressive constancy of grief, she accepts a job from an old flame from her residency in New York City's Roosevelt Hospital, and agrees to assist Ben as the ship's doctor on a British liner. Jessie boards in Hong Kong, and, as the Amphitrite sails throughout Southeast Asia and the Middle East, cruise ship antics ensue. Jessie is lulled back into a long-ago romance with the ship's co-doctor, and both she and her new/old beau become enmeshed with the ship's lead (female) singer/entertainer. Among the passengers who fling socialized behavior aside on the high seas: a former Florida beauty queen (Miss Florida Power and Light) on a second honeymoon with her husband, as she causes high-velocity scandal, while juggling onboard affairs with a suicidal golf pro, and a defrocked priest hired as one of the liner's gentleman hosts, until she vanishes--poof!--from the ship off the coast of Portugal . . . As the ship sails through the Gulf of Aden and into a possible hijacking by Somali pirates, Jessie retreats into her lover's journals, written during her final months, journals filled with sketches of potential characters, observations on life and love--as well as drafts of a long new poem in progress, "Swan Song," that seems to be about being in love with someone else, someone new. As Jessie's grief turns to suspicion about the woman she thought she knew so well, her illumination of the poem's meaning begins to lift the constraints of the past and make clear the way toward the future.
Dr. Jessie Drake, in her mid-sixties, following the sudden deaths of her parents and Kat, her partner of twenty years, has fled the Vermont life she has known for decades.
In an effort to escape the oppressive constancy of grief, she accepts a job from an old flame from her residency in New York City's Roosevelt Hospital, and agrees to assist Ben as the ship's doctor on a British liner. Jessie boards in Hong Kong, and, as the Amphitrite sails throughout Southeast Asia and the Middle East, cruise ship antics ensue. Jessie is lulled back into a long-ago romance with the ship's co-doctor, and both she and her new/old beau become enmeshed with the ship's lead (female) singer/entertainer. Among the passengers who fling socialized behavior aside on the high seas: a former Florida beauty queen (Miss Florida Power and Light) on a second honeymoon with her husband, as she causes high-velocity scandal, while juggling onboard affairs with a suicidal golf pro, and a defrocked priest hired as one of the liner's gentleman hosts, until she vanishes--poof!--from the ship off the coast of Portugal . . . As the ship sails through the Gulf of Aden and into a possible hijacking by Somali pirates, Jessie retreats into her lover's journals, written during her final months, journals filled with sketches of potential characters, observations on life and love--as well as drafts of a long new poem in progress, "Swan Song," that seems to be about being in love with someone else, someone new. As Jessie's grief turns to suspicion about the woman she thought she knew so well, her illumination of the poem's meaning begins to lift the constraints of the past and make clear the way toward the future.
More Details
ISBN:
9780525657545
Staff View
Grouping Information
Grouped Work ID | d1d49d3d-1926-974e-1fbf-fdc37f731ee3 |
---|---|
Grouping Title | swan song an odyssey |
Grouping Author | lisa alther |
Grouping Category | book |
Grouping Language | English (eng) |
Last Grouping Update | 2023-09-11 17:04:28PM |
Last Indexed | 2023-09-24 05:59:29AM |
Solr Fields
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0
accelerated_reader_reading_level
0
author
Alther, Lisa
author_display
Alther, Lisa
available_at_cable
Cable Forest Lodge Library
detailed_location_cable
Cable Adult Fiction
display_description
"A novel, set on a cruise ship, about a woman coping with the loss of her longtime lover, and pondering a new romance."--
format_cable
Book
format_category_cable
Books
id
d1d49d3d-1926-974e-1fbf-fdc37f731ee3
isbn
9780525657545
itype_cable
BOOK - HARDCOVER
last_indexed
2023-09-24T10:59:29.854Z
lexile_score
-1
literary_form
Fiction
literary_form_full
Fiction
local_callnumber_cable
FIC ALT
owning_library_cable
Cable Forest Lodge Library
owning_location_cable
Cable Forest Lodge Library
primary_isbn
9780525657545
publishDate
2020
publisher
Alfred A. Knopf
recordtype
grouped_work
subject_facet
Cruise ships -- Fiction
Diary fiction
Grief -- Fiction
Humorous fiction
Interpersonal relations -- Fiction
LGBTQ+ people
Lesbians -- Fiction
Romance fiction
Women authors -- Fiction
Women physicians -- Fiction
Diary fiction
Grief -- Fiction
Humorous fiction
Interpersonal relations -- Fiction
LGBTQ+ people
Lesbians -- Fiction
Romance fiction
Women authors -- Fiction
Women physicians -- Fiction
title_display
Swan song : an odyssey : a novel
title_full
Swan song : an odyssey : a novel / Lisa Alther
title_short
Swan song
title_sub
an odyssey : a novel
topic_facet
Cruise ships
Grief
Interpersonal relations
LGBTQ+ people
Lesbians
Women authors
Women physicians
Grief
Interpersonal relations
LGBTQ+ people
Lesbians
Women authors
Women physicians
Solr Details Tables
item_details
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---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
ils:.b20743579 | .i33747131 | Cable Adult Fiction | FIC ALT | 1 | false | false | Available | May 08, 2023 | cafic |
record_details
Bib Id | Format | Format Category | Edition | Language | Publisher | Publication Date | Physical Description | Abridged |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
ils:.b20743579 | Book | Books | First edition | English | Alfred A. Knopf | 2020 | 223 pages ; 22 cm |
scoping_details_cable
Bib Id | Item Id | Grouped Status | Status | Locally Owned | Available | Holdable | Bookable | In Library Use Only | Library Owned | Holdable PTypes | Bookable PTypes | Local Url |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
ils:.b20743579 | .i33747131 | On Shelf | Available | false | true | true | false | false | true | 9999 |