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When Anna decides to take an impromptu trip to Italy, she packs her bag, leaves her 6-year-old daughter, Lily, at home with close friends, and steps onto the plane. She's always been a woman of action, and her personal and professional lives have been filled to overflowing recently. So her friends Paul and Estella think nothing of the jaunt--it's a well-deserved break, a weekend for psychic refreshment, a brief step outside reality.
But a disappearance? When Anna fails to return, Paul and Estella make excuses, to themselves and to Lily. When the weekend stretches toward a week, the possibility of her permanent absence becomes hauntingly real. Dunant takes that absence and weaves together a pair of possible "explanations," playing out alternating scenarios of seduction (Anna in the throes of a disturbingly passionate, illicit affair) and abduction (Anna in the grasp of a stranger whose cordiality turns gradually to madness).
The narratives are both twinned and twinning, less separate alternative accounts than a dialogue, with moments, objects, and phrases that serve as uncanny mirrors between the two. Dunant is indeed a skilled mapmaker--her novel maps the edge of the self, its boundaries that so often go unquestioned. Anna's sojourn in Italy is an excavation of the threat of being defined by one's relationship to others and the temptation to redefine oneself beyond the restrictions of conventional expectation, no matter how seductive, how forceful, that convention. --Kelly Flynn
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Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. Anna packs her bags one day without telling anyone where and why she is going - just that she'll be back soon. Her thoughts as she boards a plane, are that this journey will give her time to think about her life - as a woman hitting forty, a journalist and a single mother. She has no premonition that she will become a statistic in a missing person file. Left at home is Anna's beloved six-year-old daughter Lily, her gay friend Paul, who is surrogate father to Lily, and her eccentric best friend Estella. When Anna doesn't return, they make uneasy excuses until, as time passes, the mind-numbing possibility that Anna might not be coming back becomes terrifyingly real. And while those closest to her battle with their imaginations, Anna is on a dark journey - in one scenario Anna is on a ravishing, sexual adventure, on the other, much darker voyage, she is the victim of a stranger's dangerous sexual fantasy. In a masterpiece of emotionally intelligent and nerve-wracking suspense, Sarah Dunant takes us to the very edge. From the bestselling author of The Birth of Venus comes this truly brilliant and compelling contemporary psychological thriller about a woman who, inexplicably, takes a journey and doesn't return. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability. Seller Inventory # 9781844081769
Book Description paperback. Condition: New. Language: ENG. Seller Inventory # 9781844081769
Book Description Paperback / softback. Condition: New. New copy - Usually dispatched within 4 working days. From the bestselling author of The Birth of Venus comes this truly brilliant and compelling contemporary psychological thriller about a woman who, inexplicably, takes a journey and doesn't return. Seller Inventory # B9781844081769
Book Description Condition: New. 2005. New ed. Paperback. From the bestselling author of The Birth of Venus comes this truly brilliant and compelling contemporary psychological thriller about a woman who, inexplicably, takes a journey and doesn't return. Num Pages: 352 pages. BIC Classification: FH; FJ. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). Dimension: 197 x 128 x 23. Weight in Grams: 254. . . . . . Seller Inventory # V9781844081769
Book Description Condition: New. 2005. New ed. Paperback. From the bestselling author of The Birth of Venus comes this truly brilliant and compelling contemporary psychological thriller about a woman who, inexplicably, takes a journey and doesn't return. Num Pages: 352 pages. BIC Classification: FH; FJ. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). Dimension: 197 x 128 x 23. Weight in Grams: 254. . . . . . Books ship from the US and Ireland. Seller Inventory # V9781844081769
Book Description PAP. Condition: New. New Book. Shipped from UK. Established seller since 2000. Seller Inventory # GB-9781844081769
Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. Anna packs her bags one day without telling anyone where and why she is going - just that she'll be back soon. Her thoughts as she boards a plane, are that this journey will give her time to think about her life - as a woman hitting forty, a journalist and a single mother. She has no premonition that she will become a statistic in a missing person file. Left at home is Anna's beloved six-year-old daughter Lily, her gay friend Paul, who is surrogate father to Lily, and her eccentric best friend Estella. When Anna doesn't return, they make uneasy excuses until, as time passes, the mind-numbing possibility that Anna might not be coming back becomes terrifyingly real. And while those closest to her battle with their imaginations, Anna is on a dark journey - in one scenario Anna is on a ravishing, sexual adventure, on the other, much darker voyage, she is the victim of a stranger's dangerous sexual fantasy. In a masterpiece of emotionally intelligent and nerve-wracking suspense, Sarah Dunant takes us to the very edge. From the bestselling author of The Birth of Venus comes this truly brilliant and compelling contemporary psychological thriller about a woman who, inexplicably, takes a journey and doesn't return. Shipping may be from our Sydney, NSW warehouse or from our UK or US warehouse, depending on stock availability. Seller Inventory # 9781844081769
Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. Anna packs her bags one day without telling anyone where and why she is going - just that she'll be back soon. Her thoughts as she boards a plane, are that this journey will give her time to think about her life - as a woman hitting forty, a journalist and a single mother. She has no premonition that she will become a statistic in a missing person file. Left at home is Anna's beloved six-year-old daughter Lily, her gay friend Paul, who is surrogate father to Lily, and her eccentric best friend Estella. When Anna doesn't return, they make uneasy excuses until, as time passes, the mind-numbing possibility that Anna might not be coming back becomes terrifyingly real. And while those closest to her battle with their imaginations, Anna is on a dark journey - in one scenario Anna is on a ravishing, sexual adventure, on the other, much darker voyage, she is the victim of a stranger's dangerous sexual fantasy. In a masterpiece of emotionally intelligent and nerve-wracking suspense, Sarah Dunant takes us to the very edge. From the bestselling author of The Birth of Venus comes this truly brilliant and compelling contemporary psychological thriller about a woman who, inexplicably, takes a journey and doesn't return. Shipping may be from our UK warehouse or from our Australian or US warehouses, depending on stock availability. Seller Inventory # 9781844081769