The Folded World
by Amity Gaige
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From the author of the critically acclaimed Sea WifePraised for her exquisite prose and crystalline insights, Amity Gaige returns with The Folded World, the story of an idealistic young social worker drawn into the lives of his mentally ill clients.
Charlie Shade was born into a quiet, prosperous life, but a sense of injustice dogs him. He feels destined to leave his life of "bread and laundry," to work instead with people in crisis. On his way, he meets his kindred spirit in Alice, a show more soulful young woman, living helplessly by laws of childhood superstition. Charlie's empathy with his clients—troubled souls like Hal, the high-school wrestling champion who undergoes a psychotic break, and Opal, the isolated young woman who claims "various philosophies have confused my life"—is both admirable and nearly fatal. An adoring husband and new father, Charlie risks his own cherished, private domestic world to help Hal, Opal, and others move beyond their haunted inner worlds into the larger world of love and connection.
A collision of extraordinary characters, The Folded World addresses the universal dilemma of love, wherein giving to another can seem like "the death of the world of oneself." With an unerring eye for both the joys and devastations of life, Amity Gaige once again reminds us of the pleasures and depths to be found in her fiction. show less
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Member Reviews
What a lovely book! Beautifully conceived and written. One of the books you read all year to find.
Had to stop after the sentence "her days were filled with marriage and bergamot". Too much.
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Awards
Common Knowledge
- Epigraph
- i have bent my burning ear to a tulip and it told me all about you.
- - T.W. - First words
- At the moment she was born, five hundred miles away, a small boy, his mouth ringed with jam, paused in his play on the carpet.
- Quotations
- I'm like a lot of men. I have tons of friends and not one single friendship. It's a way - - - It's a way to stay liked.
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Statistics
- Members
- 110
- Popularity
- 292,613
- Reviews
- 2
- Rating
- (3.40)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 4
- ASINs
- 2
