Then Aimee begins to recount her life as a child growing up in a farm in the adjacent land. The relationships that become central to her life and follow her throughout is the one with her mother (this was the strongest point of the book) and then the one with her brother Jeremiah who was a year younger than her but they could almost pass for twins. So quick summary:Īimee starts the book being a 38 year old woman in the 1860s who lives in a bog, away from society and she only gets 2 visitors, Amos her lover who is missing a leg and she nurses his wound and Plumey a young girl who is considered the village idiot but really she had a traumatic childhood. I have such conflicting emotions about this book, I had to sleep on it before deciding the star rating because for a good 60% of this book, it was a 1 star read but the ending really brought it together but I still can't forget that I suffered more than the first half.

The mother of two daughters, she teaches English and Creative Writing at Boston College. Her story “The Mourning Door” was award the Cohen Prize from Ploughshares Magazine. Henry Awards, The Pushcart Prize Anthology, and Best American Essays.

Her work has been anthologized in Best American Short Stories, Prize Stories: The O. Her short story collection, Have You Seen Me?, won the 1991 Drue Heinz Literature Prize. She is the author of three other novels: Awake, The Honey Thief, and Unravelling. Elizabeth Graver's previous novel, The End of the Point, set in a summer community on Buzzard’s Bay from 1942 to 1999, was on the long list for the 2013 National Book Award and a New York Times Notable Book. Inspired by the life story of her maternal grandmother Rebecca, Kantika is out from Metropolitan Books/Holt, with Turkish, German editions forthcoming and an audiobook narrated by Gail Shalan out from Dreamscape Media. Elizabeth Graver’s new novel, Kantika, is a multigenerational saga that moves from Istanbul to Barcelona, Havana and New York, exploring displacement, endurance, and family as home.

Unravelling elizabeth graver